


From Beginning to End of the Middle

by bettercrazythanboring



Series: The Middleverse [1]
Category: Young Justice, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, The Team - Freeform, Timeskip, Trauma, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 76,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettercrazythanboring/pseuds/bettercrazythanboring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day is January 1st, 2011, and Wally and Artemis need to deal with the aftermath of a kiss. Navigating this new dynamic isn't easy—particularly when their teammates take every chance they get to butt into their relationship—, but somehow, someway five years will turn them into retired, college-going superheroes in love. All of timeskip will be covered. Slight language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy New Year

**Author's Note:**

> This story is as tie-in with the show's canon as I can make it; there's bound to be some things I didn't notice (like Wally and Dick never having met the original Roy Harper before he got kidnapped) and much of it will probably be non-canonized once Legacy comes out with heaps of timeskip information, and I don't have access to the YJ comics, so it's not gonna adhere to that canon beyond what is easily found in the Wiki, but, other than that, this story is intended to be a substitute for the void left in our hearts by the five very interesting years that happened off-screen and were almost never talked about.
> 
> Enjoy and, if you can, leave a review (particularly constructive criticism); it could make future chapters more enjoyable!

Artemis let herself fall into the bath face down, causing splashes to explode out of the tub and drop onto the tile floor; her muscles finally giving in after days of exertion. The close-to-blisteringly hot water surrounding her head did nothing to soothe her exhaustion and oncoming headache, but it did make her flap her arms out behind her, looking for something to hold onto as she struggled to pull herself upright. Sitting on her knees, she sputtered and tried to sneeze the excess water from out of her nose, succeeding only partially. Her wet mane of hair was stuck in front of her face and dripping more hot water into her already irritated eyes. With an exasperated sigh, she turned around and fell backwards to lounge against the end of the tub, slightly more cautious about the force with which she did so, stopping just after her shoulders hit the water level.

She tried to relax and poured in some of the bath salts her mother had given her for Christmas, but with her throat newly sore on top of all her other injuries and her mind racing a mile a minute, that proved easier said than done.

They'd done it. Baywatch—, no, Wally, had kissed her. In typical Wally fashion, he'd made an event out of it, went overboard more than was probably necessary, which somehow made it less of a big deal, but it was just so  _them._  Of  _course_  he would pick her up bridal style when a simple embrace would do (not even an embrace; her first kiss had happened with a yank of her arm). Of  _course_  she would wrap her arms around his neck and cross her legs in their almost automatic effort to one-up each other.

Question was, she thought, lifting her foam-filled palms and blowing on them, making the bubbles scatter on the already wet and slippery tiles, where they went from here. They had danced around it ever since they first met—and if she was being honest with herself, pretending that Bialya was not how their first meeting would have gone under less stress-filled circumstances was exhausting and hypocritical; even mocking the hell out of him hadn't stopped her from noticing how good he looked in beach boxers, though she'd never tell anyone—, and part of her was glad they were both finally on the same, relatively calm page, but, then again, the entire five months they'd known each other had been plagued by misunderstandings and secrets, and insecurities, and crushes on other people. What were the chances those would stop if they entered... whatever their thing was?  _"Actually, scratch that,"_  she thought, sinking deeper into the water, staring at the cracks in the ceiling and wincing when her back hit the tub at a particularly sensitive spot where a bruise from her fight with The League was forming.  _"What are the chances it wouldn't become ten times_  worse?"

Putting the team in jeopardy was the last thing she wanted to do. Not now that she finally felt safe in her position.

 _"M'gann and Conner manage it just fine, though,"_  said the voice in her head that was responsible for replaying the kiss over and over again every time she closed her eyes.  _"They don't bicker nearly as much, but that doesn't mean you and Wally are doomed to fail."_

 _"It doesn't mean every secret identity relationship is destined for success, either; look at Mom and Dad,"_  said the other voice in her head, the one which had prompted her to plant a decoy tracker for Wally and Red Arrow weeks earlier.

Remembering the way things turned out then and how much she regretted going off book, she decided then and there she wouldn't let fear stop her from being with Wally, if things developed that way. Which was a big 'if', considering that of the four couples kissing earlier that night, only M'gann and Conner were in a relationship or getting into one in the near future as far as she knew. Wally could have just been acknowledging their UST, as Zee liked to call it.

Kissing was not the same as wanting to date someone; that she knew from experience.

What a kiss it was, though. Artemis wasn't particularly prone to obsessing over guys or doing happy dances when they liked her back, but she allowed herself a small smile at the memory. It had been a little sloppy, a little rushed, and she was ninety-percent sure their noses had bumped into each other at one point, but it was perfect in its imperfections. It was so.. _. her._  And  _very_  Wally.

Seeing her skin turn wrinkly and red and feeling her muscles having relaxed, she deemed the day to have had enough events and that sleep was required.

Sleep. Just the word itself was making her moan with need.

She slowly stood up on her slightly wobbly feet, holding the side of the tub for support, and put one foot out on the floor... at which point she slipped and landed in a very strange-feeling position that barely kept her nose from having connected with the tiles - one of her hands was on the floor, the other clutching a bathrobe that hung on the wall, one leg bent at the knee and the other still in the tub. A sort of weird crouching vertical split that a monkey would do.

"Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!" she screamed, almost whimpering and lightly banging her head at the floor.

"Artemis? Artemis, are you okay?" her mother called from her bedroom.

"Fine, mom!" Artemis called back. Then she lowered her voice, muttering to herself. "I'll just sleep in the bathroom tonight if that's okay with you."

And with that she took her other leg out of the bath tub, somehow managed to get the robe off its hook from her crouching position, and collapsed on the floor with the robe as her blanket, falling asleep almost immediately.

* * *

Wallace West turned the doorknob slowly, careful to make as little sound as possible. The night was by no means dark and even less quiet, stray fireworks still going off periodically somewhere in the distance, but disturbing his parents' sleep in the middle of the night was a bad idea on  _any_  day, even New Years Eve.

He tiptoed across the living room to the kitchen, yanking open the fridge and taking out half the contents. It had been a long day and an even longer night, he mused, taking out a spoon and scarfing down the cookie dough ice cream absentmindedly. It wasn't even night anymore, really, he realized, accidentally catching a glimpse of the oven clock. Nearly seven in the morning.

After finishing about a gallon of ice cream—hey, he was allowed to eat his feelings every once in a while—, he took off his mask threw it on the table, sitting down and rubbing his eyes. How long had he, Robin, and Aqualad sat there in the kitchen of Mount Justice after everyone else had gone home or to sleep? How many minutes passed without them even saying a word?

He still couldn't believe that the Roy Harper he'd known for three years was not the same Roy Harper he'd met just after becoming Kid Flash. He still couldn't believe... he'd betrayed them. Not intentionally, of course, but he just couldn't help thinking that if only they'd known, if only they'd picked up on the clues, then M'gann could have rebooted his brain or whatever it was that she did and none of this mess would have happened.

Or maybe The Light would have found some other way to make it happen, who knows.

All Wally knew for sure was that the group of friends he considered to be the core of his superhero life was broken. The team had only existed for barely six months, but he, Dick, Kaldur and Roy had always been a... solid, even if they'd never all been at the same place at the same time before July 4th.

He thought of Green Arrow and the immense amount of guilt he must have been feeling ever since finding out; a guilt that probably wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He thought of Kaldur and the pain of having one more person turn away from him. He thought of Conner and all the issues the force-grown boy had gone through despite him being an entirely original and unique person.

And he thought of the clone who, despite leading a kickass life for the last three years and being a damn good friend now had to live with knowing he was a replacement. A pawn.

Man, and Wally'd thought  _his_  issues were bad.

He'd thought of his all for hours and hours already, but it just wouldn't go away. Where was the original Roy? Was he still alive? Would they ever find him? How long would it take? What kind of condition would he be in once they did? Was it possible to live through that kind of trauma? Was it possible to live after it?

"I thought this was a night for celebration, dammit," he muttered, slamming his open palm on the table, scattering his half-eaten sandwich's remains. And just like that, his mind flashed back to the image of Artemis in his arms, the feel of her body in her hands, her lips on his.

His frown immediately turned into a crooked grin as he put the sandwich back together, a tone of red flooding his ears. He wasn't really sure what had come over him in that moment; where he'd gotten the courage to be so bold, after all they'd gone through, after all the merciless teasing. But it was about time.

And she didn't exactly seem to mind, if he did say so himself.

"Uh oh, is someone talking about you?" his mother asked, walking into the kitchen and frowning at the mess he'd made, making a nod toward his flushed ears when he looked at her in confusion.

"No, no, just... remembering a thing that happened today."

"Was it a funny thing?" she asked, coming over to her son and hugging him tightly.

"No, just a thing."

"An embarrassing thing?"

"It. Was. A.  _Thing._ " Wally snaked his way out of her arms and took a loaf of bread along with a container of peanut butter. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I am sweaty and filthy, and bloody and I really need to take a shower now that you and Dad are awake." And with that, he was off to his room, sending the papers posted to the fridge flying off from under their magnets.

"Must have been a girl," Mrs. West mumbled to herself, yawning and pouring herself leftover champagne.

Upstairs, Wally had just stuffed his costume into the laundry basket and stepped into the shower, finally realizing how exhausted he was. The cold water rinsed away the dirt and the blood and with it went some of the grief about Roy.

They were superheroes, after all. There was nothing they couldn't do if they put their minds to it. And had strength in numbers. And weren't afraid to take the bull by the horns. First thing after he woke up, he'd go find Robin and start a search for the original Speedy. Now that they knew to look for him, it'd be a piece of cake. Mmm, cake. Why did nobody ever serve cake at New Years' parties?

The point was, it would be just another mission. Maybe a little more personal than he was used to, but they'd deal with it. And Red Arrow would help. And come to terms with his origin. Eventually. He had to... right?

It would all be fine. In time. Of that Wally was sure, or at least he tried to be.

And in the meantime, he had freaking kissed Artemis, which he had given  _far_  too little thought to so far in the night. What was the protocol for going forward? Was it automatically assumed they were a couple or did he have to ask her out? If they went on a date, would they go straight to the making out or would they have to create another 'first kiss' moment, making this one a prompt for the start of a relationship, but not part of the  _actual_  relationship? Did Artemis even want to be in a relationship? Should he have asked? Oh, God, was it just a New-Year's-slash-big-win fluke?

Were they capable of going more than five minutes without fighting? Did either of them want to?

With a wide-eyed, unblinking stare at the shower wall, Wally realized he didn't even know why he liked Artemis. Or when he'd started to. Or why he'd kissed her. And the mere prospect of talking to her about it filled his veins with cold dread.

"Ohhhh, boy, this was not what I signed up for," he muttered, turning the water slightly hotter to warm himself up. He could feel cold sweat rise unto his skin, and his heart beat abnormally at every thought about Artemis that wasn't of the kiss.

Hitting on girls he had down. Some would say a little  _too_  down, but he couldn't help being affectionate toward the ladies. They were pretty magnificent creatures, you know. But actually going out with someone? He'd never made it that far. He had absolutely no idea what to do.

Shutting the water off and pulling on his boxers, he decided to make a slight change in plans. First thing when he woke up, he'd go find M'gann and ask her.  _Then_  he'd track down Robin and focus on the search for Speedy with everything he had.

And with any luck, all his problems would be solved in a month or two. Really, the day hadn't been quite so bad, if you thought about it hard enough. And with that notion, he climbed into his bed and fell asleep instantly.


	2. A New Day

Artemis spent the day in bed. Partly because she was still very tired and kept falling asleep, but mostly because it was a new day, a new year, it was still winter break, and there were no missions.

And also she felt like glue had been poured into her veins every time she tried to move a limb. It was certainly something she'd felt before (many,  _many_  times), but the simple fact remained that the last few days had been hard on her body even more than usual. She could withstand the regular missions—her rigorous training with Dad had ensured that much—, but this time was different.

She'd earned a day off.

So she slept, ate Chinese food, browsed the shopping catalogues her neighbor would sometimes leave Paula, and streamed Mexican telenovelas—the bad kind—on her old laptop. Sometimes she looked at her phone and wondered whether Wally would call. Other times she wondered whether she should call. But most of the time she tried to push the damn redheaded speedster out of her mind and concentrate on herself. This was her day, to nurse herself back to full health with junk. Junk was good. Junk could cure cancer, as far as Artemis was concerned. And Wally, moronic as he could be, did not count.

While she was enjoying pigging out in all aspects of life, Wally was making his way over to the Central City zeta tube as soon as he woke up (you know, eight in the evening, no biggie), slowly walking instead of flash-running as he usually did, to give himself time to think. To figure out what to say to M'gann.

That was proving pretty hard, though, when he didn't even know whether it was M'gann he should be talking to. Sure, she was the only one on the team who'd actually managed to sustain a relationship (Conner included; Wally would swear on his life the guy just fell ass-backward into their affair with no idea what he was doing), but as far as he knew, that was her only one anyway. And until very recently, he'd hit on her. Relentlessly. Might make things awkward.

The only other option, though, was Black Canary. Or his mom. And there was no way Wally was talking to either of them. So a few minutes later, he timidly knocked on M'gann's room's door in The Cave, waiting for a response. When there was none, he knocked again. Still nothing.

"M'gann?" he called, slowly pushing down the doorknob to see whether the door was locked. It opened easily and he pushed at it the tiniest amount of possible before looking in with half-squinted eyes. You know, in case she hadn't heard him with headphones on in her underwear or something.

The memory of the time that had actually happened flooded his brain and his neck turned red. Luckily for him, however, the room was empty but for a few stray pieces of clothing and a sleeping Wolf. Confused, he took a walk around The Cave, looking for her, but instead found the whole place dead silent, no one anywhere in sight.

"M'gann! Superboy!" His voice echoed in the empty halls. "Is anyone here?"

"Do you absolutely positively have to be so loud?" asked Zatanna, pushing herself upright from her hidden position on the couch. "Some of us have a headache."

"Hey!" Wally yelled out of relief. "Whoops, I mean hey," he added in a much lower tone when she winced. "Where is everyone?"

"Red Tornado is upstairs trying to fix his android, Robin was here earlier, but left, and M'gann and Conner are in his room, how should I put this delicately..." She paused. " _Boning_." Wally grimaced. "Leaving me all alone out here with my throbbing skull. I can honestly say, and this is not often the case, may I add, that I am bored. So very, very bored."

"Do you know when... uh, how long they have been in there?"

"Well, judging from what I've learned since I moved in here, I'd have to say they're not gonna be out for a while. Why, what did you need?"

"Nothing, I just... wanted to talk to M'gann about something, that's all."

"Hey, if it's anything I can be of help with, shoot away."

"Yeah, I'm not really sure whether you're the best person— I mean, no offense, but you're the second youngest on this team."

"And," she interjected, "to the best of my knowledge I am also the only one currently hungover; what's your point?"

He paused, mulling that over in his head. "I guess I don't have one. Well, okay, if you insist," he said, coming over to the green couch and sitting on the edge as Zatanna took her legs out of the way and then put them into his lap.

"So spill; what's on your mind?"

He took a deep breath and blew it out. "IkissedArtemislastnight."

"I know. I was there." She motioned for him to continue. He stared wordlessly at the dormant TV, unable to get anything else out and eventually glancing at her with an apologetically awkward, lost expression when he felt her frown all the way from across the couch. "Jeez, what is  _with_  the two of you?" Zatanna yelled at the sky with flailing arms, all trace of patience gone from her voice, leaving only exasperation. "Let me get this straight: I've been watching you two idiots be stupid about each other for nearly three months and now you've  _kissed_ _..._ and you  _still_  can't act like normal human beings?"

"We're not normal; we're superheroes," Wally protested.

"So not the point." Zatanna sighed, gathering herself. "You know, we have a pool going—M'gann, Conner and I. About when you'd finally dig your heads out of the sand and look around, and realize you guys are perfect for each other. Obviously, I should have put my money on 'never'. That's fifty bucks I'll never see again."

"Wait— You guys started a  _pool_ _?_  When?"

"Like, way before I even joined the team, dummy." She rolled her eyes. "You guys are the only ones who were too blind to see what's happening."

"I—" Wally raised his hands, then lowered them again. "I have no idea how to even begin to respond to that."

"Then tell me why you were looking for M'gann instead. So you kissed. What's next?"

"...I don't  _know_ ," he said, turning toward her with pleading in his eyes.

"Well, what do you want?"

"I—," he started, but then realized he hadn't actually thought about it; he'd been too busy freaking out about protocol to stop and evaluate. He did so now, while Zatanna waited, eventually raising her eyebrows as the silence dragged on. "I think..." he said after a while. "I  _think_ I like her. Like, a lot. Like,  _'spend an entire day talking to her and then another doing nothing but making out'_ a lot." He looked at her with unmasked fright in his eyes. "What am I gonna do?"

"Ask her out. That's kind of a no-brainer."

"No, but— what if she says no? Or what if she's only attracted to me physically? I don't want things to be weird between us."

"As if they aren't already," Zatanna whispered too low for Wally to hear. "Plenty of girls have said no to you, Wally."

"But none of them are Artemis."

"And he makes a valid point, folks! Good for you, Wally, all in denial about being totes in love with our beloved archer, but... she ain't gonna say no."

"How do  _you_  know?"

"I could replay the Watchtower surveillance, if you'd like." She smirked. "Trust me."

He looked down at the hands that were twisting and untwisting themselves between his knees. "So what do I do?"

"Ask. Her.  _Out_. Watch a movie on DVD or something; figure it out. And stop worrying about everything else," she added. "It'll be fine if it's right. And, baby," she said, shaking her head wondrously, "it's right."

"But—"

"No buts. Now go. Robin told me to tell you to go to Red Arrow's apartment if you came by here."

"You know, you kissed him too," Wally pointed out. "How come I don't see  _you_ fretting over asking  _him_  out?"

"I already did." Zatanna shrugged with a self-satisfied smile, laying her head against the armrest. "Not all of us are giant dorks."

"Like me, you mean?"

"You  _and_  Arty," she corrected, "She might even be a bigger dork than you are, honestly."

"You think?" Wally perked up slightly at the idea.

"Oh, you betcha. I guarantee you she's freaking out the same way you are right now." Zatanna pulled her feet out of Wally's lap and started pushing him off the couch. "Although I'm not sure if she could top the meltdown you definitely would've had if you realized that you like her, like,  _'_ _days_ _of_ _talking_ _and_ _kissing_ _'_ _a_ _lot_ ," she teased, "before kissing her. Man, that would have been such a show." She sighed. "I'd bet another fifty bucks you would've spontaneously combusted or something."

Wally's brow furrowed. "Are you okay?"

She sniggered. "Eh— I miiiight be not so much hungover as still a  _teensy_  bit drunk... and not slept at all."

He shook his head in amazement. "How are you still conscious after yesterday?"

"What can I say; I'm a supergirl." She grinned smugly, then winced and put her hand to her forehead.

"Well, don't— don't hurt yourself, okay?" Wally got up, warily eyeing the the lounging girl.

"Psh, as if. Go—solve your problems, bring Speedy home. Try not to hit on anyone."

"Yeah, okay. And, Zatanna?"

"Hmm?" She opened her eyes.

"Thanks. For the pep talk, I mean. Not the abundance of 'idiots' and 'dummies'."

"Any time, pal." She smiled, then tightened her eyes. "My money's on the line, after all."

Wally stuck his tongue out and started making his way toward the zeta tubes. Halfway there, he stopped and turned back to Zatanna.

"You really think she's freaking out?"

"Yes. My vast experience with these things dictates with a hundred-percent certainty that I am correct in my assessment."

He chuckled. "Okay." And he left the girl snuggling into the couch, where she soon fell asleep, only to be woken hours later by yet another instance of M'gann and Conner being affectionate in inappropriate places.

* * *

It would disappoint Zatanna greatly to see an image of Artemis at that very moment. There was no freaking out going on anywhere in her apartment, just a girl sleeping among several piles of magazines and a bag of chips, with her mountain of blond tufts hanging off the edge of the bed. The room was dark, but a sliver of moonlight illuminated her cheek and turned her golden hair into silvery threads. It was the kind of snapshot that was simultaneously so casual—messy, even— and peaceful, sort of serene. Paula caught a glimpse of it through the half-open door on her way to the kitchen and smiled to herself, happy to have one daughter who could still give into unpolluted sleep. One who looked just as if she were five years old instead of fifteen, so tiny that Paula could still hoist the little nugget up into her arms and carry her around.

" _Oh_ _,_ _how_ _the_ _times_ _have_ _changed_ _,"_  she thought with a sigh, looking down at her legs in the wheelchair, a pang in her heart when her eyes caught a glimpse of her daughter's bloody uniform in the laundry basket.

Unbeknownst to her, the not-quite-so-little nugget was dreaming of her other daughter, the one who'd gone down a much darker path. Artemis' dream was laced with memories from her childhood, from when they could still stick together, and interlaced with some more recent ones, both antagonistic and altruistic—like Jade saving her from that avalanche just a few days prior.

You wouldn't know it from the way her features were completely smooth that once her dad appeared, the wistful dream turned into a nightmare. Not even a forehead muscle twitched as she relived the psychological torture the man had brought into her life once her mother was away. The bunnies that had surrounded the memories of her sister turned into oversized mutants with creepily green fur and glow-in-the-dark eyes and the sky above turned dark, with just enough light left to make out a handful of shadowy silhouettes up above, menacing and always one step ahead.

Her heart beat fast as she tried to escape the sleep world, but her pulse was the only outward sign she wasn't dreaming of butterflies. Suddenly she wasn't just running away, but evading arrows—her own, in fact. They were raining down from the sky, fired by an unknown shooter, and a couple grazed her limbs. She never stopped running and reaching for her bow on instinct, though it was nowhere to be found; not even as the arrows blew past her to explode just a few feet away. She only slowed once an accurately fired arrow of the old kind—with the pointed tip—pierced her right through the abdomen, coming out on the other side, and made the world a mass of red stickiness and pain. Yet she still didn't stop. She couldn't allow herse—

_Bzzz_ _._ _Bzzz_ _._ _Bzzz_ _._

Artemis' eyes snapped open as she felt something vibrate against her thigh. Drawing in a shaky breath and laying a palm on her stomach to make sure everything was as it was supposed to be, she slowly sat up in the moonlit bed, running her fingers through her hair. The sound of a nearby casino's slot machine's payout was calming, reminding her that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. She pushed the blankets away to grab her phone, which displayed a text message alert.

_Happy_ _New_ _Year_ _,_ _Artemis_ _. —_ _Wally_

She stared at the screen for a long time, memorizing the four simple words, her features softening with each passing minute as her pulse steadied and fingers slowly unclenching from the fist in her sheets she wasn't even aware she was making. Her eyes ran over the text again and again, so focused on the white, luminous background amidst the darkness of her room that they started to hurt. A good, long while passed in silence before her digits started moving on the keyboard to reply, accompanied by a slight smile that had snuck onto her mouth while she wasn't paying attention.

_You_ _too_ _,_ _Wally_ _._ _You_ _too_ _._


	3. Downtime

Wally covered his ears immediately after stepping out of the zeta tube, taken aback by the sudden blast of very loud music. The Mission Room was completely empty, but he could see an abundance of color and light coming from the lounge. Grinning, he ran over there, stopping with a burst of wind right on the threshold.

"The Wall-man's here!" he announced to the group of teenagers spread out over the room with arms open wide, trying his best to yell over the music.

"Wally; you made it!" M'gann smiled, swiveling around in one of the unusual chairs by the counter that Wally and Robin had put together soon after the team was formed. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to come."

The team hadn't had some downtime and bonding options in quite a while, so Kaldur felt there was a need to throw a party. For no particular reason. Unless getting the League back and other wins counted as a reason, which, admittedly, wasn't the case in Kaldur's book _—_ one could not spend too much time resting on laurels, for the enemy sure as hell wouldn't be sitting on their defeat.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late;  _parents_." He rolled his eyes. "So," he asked, coming over to the counter and popping one of M'gann's freshly baked cookies into his mouth, "did I miss anything good?"

"Not much; Zatanna and Artemis are just setting up a poker game."

Hearing Artemis' name, his head immediately snapped toward the direction M'gann pointed in, realizing a little too late what it was doing; he turned it back and in the other direction in an attempt to play things cool, but he was fooling no one. Thankfully, Artemis had her back to him and was too busy to notice, but he could distinctly see Zatanna shake her head with a laugh from the corner of his eye.

"Wally?" M'gann asked, slightly confused by the ordeal.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah." He focused his attention back to her. "Right. Poker game. I want in. I will go, uh, see what I can do about that. Good cookies," he added, grabbing another handful and stuffing them into his mouth, then dashing off to find Robin.

Zatanna looked at him go on the other side of the room and, after a moment of consideration, leaned down on the table, supporting her head on her elbows, eyeing Artemis with pursed lips.

"What is it?" Artemis asked without looking up, continuing to inventorize the chips Zee had brought from her old home. "I can hear you staring."

"I was just wondering whether you and Wally were a thing yet or not, that's all."

"What do you mean by 'a thing'?" Artemis paused her counting to write the total down. Suddenly she jerked up. "Wait, what do you mean by  _'_ _yet_ _'_?"

"Please, as if you really have to ask. So spill—you guys kissed. What happened then?"

"Nothing." Artemis shrugged. "I haven't seen him since. He's probably not even gonna show up tonight," she said, her voice betraying only a sliver of the hope she felt that that would indeed be the case. She didn't know how to have that conversation, hadn't figured out what to say yet.

Zee laughed. "Arty," she emphasized the word just enough to get the girl to look at her, "he's already  _here_. He arrived, like, five minutes ago. He's over by the TV talking to Robin." She nodded her head toward them.

Artemis' heart fell as she looked around to see the two boys in their civvies, talking animatedly about something that looked big and round judging from the way Wally's hands moved. It wasn't fair, she thought. Here he was—moving like an awkward giraffe, cookie crumbs stuck to the corner of his mouth, cheeks still a little pink from the harsh winter wind outside—and all she could think about was how ridiculously handsome he looked. A little thrown by the feeling, something that hadn't really ever been a problem before, she made an effort to get back to the poker chips, but just before she could do so, his eyes randomly wandered across the room and landed right on hers.

She could see his expression clear and jaw clench slightly, could almost hear him swallow a little nervously before flashing her a small, timid smile that was gone in less time than she could blink. She returned it with an even tinier one of her own and, panicking over the intensity their stare-down was rapidly gaining, pivoted away back to the table. She glanced over a few seconds later and Wally was back to conversing with Robin, though he sneaked glances at her as well—glances she promptly avoided, turning her head back again at lighting speed.

"Oh yeah, you  _totally_  have no idea what I'm talking about," Zatanna mused with a smirk.

"Shut up," Artemis muttered.

"No, thanks; this is way too much fun." She stuck her tongue in her cheek. "You know, I think I'll go see what Wally's up to."

"Wh—  _Zee_ _!_ " Artemis hissed. She watched her friend leave, trying to grab her hand as Zatanna passed, but the latter skidded out of the way and jogged over to the boys, leaving the archer no choice but to return to her position away from them after staring at her friend's retreating form with wide, mortified eyes. Her head was firmly down as a slight pink colored her cheeks and she looked back nervously through the hole between her hip and her arm.

Dammit. She was not this girl. She was the one who always had a quip ready, the one who never showed weakness. She didn't get flustered. She did not blush. She hadn't even been aware she  _could_  blush until this very moment.

Why did that stupid speedster have to bring out this side of her?

Taking a deep breath and huffing it out, she clenched her fists and promptly slipped out of the lounge, headed for the training room; she needed to let out her frustration with herself.

Back by the TV, Wally was acutely aware of Artemis leaving, despite barely having her in his vision; it was as if he had an extra sense, meant exclusively for feeling exactly where the archer was at all times. It was a little freaky, he admitted as the hair on his scalp stood up. She had probably glanced at him from behind or something.

Zatanna barely made an effort to cover her amusement at the uncomfortable redhead, not even bothering to say anything, just stare. Wally, getting the wordless message, ran his tongue over his teeth and ended up gritting them. Robin looked back and forth between the two of them with a furrowed brow. After thirty seconds passed in complete silence as the unspoken staring contest continued, he rolled his eyes and went to get some soda.

Wally could feel his ears getting red again, but held his stance even though her eyes bore into his, making it very hard to think. All he could see was a dare. His heart beat faster as he thought of Artemis and their impending conversation and he could feel the cold sweat coat his skin again. Still, he couldn't help wanting to go to her despite everything.

He exhaled sharply. "Fine," he said, curt as heck, "I'll go talk to her. Don't follow me," he warned.

Zatanna grinned.  _Man_ , this was fun.

* * *

Wally found Artemis in their training center, administering some well-deserved high kicks to a boxing bag. (Everybody hated that particular boxing bag.) Her brown leather jacket was thrown carelessly over a nearby bench and her stiletto boots stood abandoned in the middle of the gymnastics area. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her go in her capri jeans and white tank top, blond mass of hair flying out behind her as she came at the bag from all angles, leaping off it or using it as a platform to launch herself in the air and land like a cat, her bare feet easily providing balance.

A small smile of admiration graced Wally's face. He'd never looked at her like this, in action. They'd fought side by side countless times, but then there was actual danger and he'd had to look out for himself; he never had the opportunity to look at what everyone else was doing, much less appreciate it aesthetically. But seeing her now—graceful and agile, so very strong and able—he felt as if he could watch her all day.

She wasn't sure which was the particular moment she realized she wasn't alone. She didn't know if she accidentally caught a glimpse of him during one of her saltos or if she could just feel his eyes boring into her back, or if he'd made some small noise she subconsciously picked up on. All she knew was that a newfound fire ran through her. She'd thought it be distracting, having an audience, but somehow knowing Wally was watching her every move added fuel to her activities. He wanted a show? She'd give him something to look at.

Artemis upped her game, executing a series of complex combinations, not just against the boxing bag, but at the various dummies, poles and balancing beams scattered around the place. She was not a gymnast in the strictest sense, as Robin frequently reminded her, but there was no denying that her rigorous training from an extremely young age had provided her body with certain... capabilities.

Such as doing an almost perfect split mid-air.

It was then that Wally knew she knew. Cover blown, he stepped into the room and, on impulse, joined her in the escapades, leaving his blue button-up shirt next to one of her boots and rolling up the sleeves of the white pullover underneath. They shared the space and kept tabs on each other, engaging in something that vaguely resembled a weird primal mating dance. His fighting style was much less graceful and headstrong—he preferred evasiveness and strategy over elaborate fisticuffs—, but they both knew that in a fight they would be evenly matched.

Which, oddly, was exactly what happened when a lack of awareness for the other made them collide like two cars playing chicken in the dark. Their reflexes, being the superbly fine-tuned instruments they were, ensured that neither lost their balance, yet somehow, through very fast movements that started as a defense mechanism and quickly became an actual struggle for the upper hand, they ended up on the floor anyway.

Both panting heavily and trying to settle down, they looked at each other, growing painfully aware of the way their legs happened to be tangled up together. It was as if the room's temperature had been raised twofold despite both of them starting to cool down. A small bead of sweat ran down the side of Wally's face and dropped onto her shirt, their eyes never breaking contact.

Taking advantage of Wally's momentary breathlessness, Artemis, who had landed on the bottom by some trick of his she had yet to figure out, grabbed his shoulders and flipped them. She sat up on top of him and released her damp, sweat-infused mane from its hairband, letting it hang loosely around her.

"Impressed?" she asked, a slight dare in her voice. She knew he knew she knew he'd been watching and he had  _better_  know it too.

"Very," Wally said, looking up at her with the strangest intensity in his eyes that made her realize just what sort of position they were currently in. The air suddenly seemed very thick and hard to breathe in and there was a most unusual sensation in her belly. Without realizing it, she was slowly leaning over him, lower and lower until her hair brushed the floor and his cheek.

His eyes briefly moved from hers and ran over her lips; just for half a second, but that was enough to make her heart practically jump out of her chest and pump ridiculous amounts of adrenaline through her veins.

"Good," she declared and leaned down all the way, capturing his lips with his.

She could feel him blow air through his nose in surprise, then quickly draw in a breath again as their lips moved together. Artemis took his face in her palms and bit his lip. He let out a shaky laugh and grabbed for the floor with his hand, slowly getting upright with their lips never leaving each other. He ran his hand down her back and buried the other in her hair, reveling in the shivers running down his spine when she let out the sexiest moan he'd ever heard.

This was a far cry from their first kiss, Artemis couldn't help but think as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing him closer and then closer still. She had suspected that the sloppiness and awkwardness had been due to their different personalities and, well, a relationship that was awkward in many ways, but this... This was not anything she had anticipated experiencing less than two or maybe three years in the future, at least. Okay, maybe a couple of months. All right, maybe a few weeks.

But certainly not right away.

Yet here he was and he was everywhere, and he was warm, and when their lips parted, the friction between their tongues was bordering on sensory overload. He tasted of... food, predictably, but there was also a faint trace of something else, something she could only identify as uniquely Wally.

The hopeful part of her was really looking forward to acquainting herself with the taste in the near future.

The kiss eventually subsided and, with a final peck, the two broke apart, still intertwined in the lower extremities, both out of breath and a little bit pink in the face. She could see most of the what little lipstick she'd put on for the party smeared across his mouth. They stared at each other for a long moment, unsure of what to say and having trouble swallowing with their dry throats. Then, as if suddenly remembering who they were and where they were, they untangled themselves with jerky movements and got up, not facing each other.

Artemis bit her lip and picked up her boots, getting down on the bench to put them on and discreetly touch a palm to her heart to see whether it was really thundering like it felt.

It was.

Wally picked up his shirt and tied it around his waist. Hesitant, he turned toward the archer just in time to see her put on her jacket. The merciless teasing that was sure to follow if word got out that he'd kissed Artemis  _again_  (or, rather, she'd kissed him) and  _still_  hadn't done anything about it popped into his head and he took a deep breath, blowing it out in one puff.

"So, do you want to, uh, like, watch a movie or something... sometime?" he asked, looking away.

She froze and gulped. "Um... sure." Artemis willed her breathing to calm down. "Where?"

"That's a, uh, very good question. I'll get, erm, back to you on that." He cleared his throat.

She paused. "Okay." Another pause. "So, poker?"

"Yes, poker," he said, relieved. "With other people." Another wave of relief. "Fun."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Okay, then, uh, ladies first." He gestured toward the exit.

"Yeah, thanks," she said, bolting out the door and letting all the nerves seep out onto her expression now that he couldn't see.

Wally stayed behind because a whole hall of uncomfortable silence, or worse, forced conversation, would probably kill him. Unfortunately for the speedster, he turned back to follow her right when her backside was in the best view.

Feeling his face go tomato red  _yet_ _again_ , he shook out his entire body and went to the sink to splash some cold water onto his everything.

What the hell had he gotten himself into? And why couldn't he bring himself to regret it?


	4. First Date

Wally paced back and forth in front of the microwave, waiting for the popcorn to be done. His eyes ran over the room, carefully examining each detail and committing to memory. The pillows on the couch needed more fluff. There was a stray tangle of discarded hair— _M_ _'_ _gann_ _!_ —on the floor lodged onto the carpet. The TV hadn't been dusted in a couple of days. Ooh, there went the popcorn.

"Dude, slow down," said Conner, walking over to the fridge to grab a soda, "You'll run a hole in the ground. And you're not the one who has to live here."

"Superboy, I thought I asked you and M'gann to, y'know,  _disappear_ _!_ " Wally said through his teeth, looking around for the girl (or Artemis) to show up. Momentarily relieved, he went back to meticulously arranging the popcorn pieces in the perfect aesthetic shape in the bowl, periodically popping one into his mouth.

"Relax, relax, I'm going; M'gann wants to show me  _Hello_ _Megan_ _!_ , you know, that TV show she likes?"

"Yeah, good luck with that; now get out." Wally started pushing Conner away. The young man just raised his eyebrows as Wally's efforts didn't move him even half an inch. "Okay,  _please_  go." Wally gave up on using force and grabbed the snacks he had lined up, arranging them neatly next to the couch.

"Hope you don't mess this up, kid."

"Hey, I'm, like, the same age as you are," Wally pointed out, "and a lot older if we're going by how long you've been alive."

"Whatever."

"Speaking of which: how is it fair that you've had a girlfriend since you were two months old? That doesn't make any sense."

"Uh huh." Conner turned away. "Oh, by the way, what did you give her to get her not to peek? 'Cause she swears she won't do it and that's not like her."

"I have my secrets." Wally smirked. Conner cocked his head in confusion. "Okay, mostly I just have a mother who also happens to be a fan of Hello Megan and has certain stories from when it was on the air; go figure. Now, seriously, if you don't get out of here right this second, I'm gonna go all Kryptonite on your ass."

Conner rolled his eyes and headed back to M'gann's quarters. Wally watched him go and then checked anything that could still be out of place. The oven wasn't burning, the DVD disks weren't broken, the sink was actually empty for once—does anybody thank the Wall-man? No, they do not—, and Dick had assured him that whatever mission would pop up he could handle with Kaldur on their duo bonding stakeout.

It seemed everything was perfect... except she wasn't here. As a horrifying thought crossed his mind, he grabbed his phone out of his pocket, almost tearing a hole in the fabric, and checked his sent and received texts to make sure it was actually Artemis he had sent the details to and who had replied with a confirmation.

He stood there, between the couch and the TV, staring at his phone, his face an odd mixture of confusion, horror and hope, when she found him a minute later and couldn't help but smirk; she was a goner when he was all cute and boyish and  _pure_  like that.

The last couple of days had given Artemis time to come to terms with their situation. She could actually think quite clearly when he wasn't around her—when she couldn't feel the heat radiating off his skin or smell the faint trace of static he left behind wherever he went, or count out the freckles scattered on his nose—, and the conclusion those thoughts had lead her to was that even though she and Wally could be awkward and misunderstanding and borderline insulting and  _so_ _many_  other things... she was curious. She was  _very_  curious to see what they could become together, where this could go. It was a strange thing, curiosity. It could make people do all kinds of weird things. Like forcing yourself to forget all the uneasiness you feel and respond as you would under any other circumstances.

"Looking for me?" she asked, enjoying the way his phone flew almost a feet up in the air and he struggled to catch it, putting it away with a slight blush. "Or were you just looking at inappropriate pictures?"

"I—what?" He cleared his throat. "Come in. Make yourself... comfortable...?" He winced.  _"_ _Dammit_ _,_ _Wally_ _,_ _this_ _is_ _her_ _Cave_ _too_ _._ _Stop_ _acting_ _like_ _she_ _'_ _s_ _a freaking_ _guest_ _,"_  he commanded himself.

"Is that chocolate popcorn?" She walked over and plopped down on the couch, putting her feet up in a lotus position.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed it's your favorite..." he trailed off.

"...and you eat anything that is edible..." she continued.

"Well, yeah." He flashed a quick apologetic smile.

"So what are we watching?" she asked with a tiny smile of her own.

"I thought maybe as a compromise I could filter a couple flicks out of the vast thousands we have available and then you'd make the final choice?"

"That sounds... surprisingly reasonable." Her eyes tightened. "Are you working an angle?"

He scowled at her silently. "So what I have here is  _Inception_ ,  _Easy_ _A_ ,  _Scott_ _Pilgrim_ _Vs_ _._ _The_ _World_ ,  _Megamind_ ,  _The_ _Adjustment_ _Bureau_ ,  _The_ _Proposal_  and, of course, the ever-spectacular classic  _The_ _Incredibles_. What will it be?" he turned to her expectantly.

"Megamind," she said after a moment of consideration. "I'm in an inept villain kinda mood."

"No kidding; me too," he said, putting the DVD in and sitting down on the opposite side of the couch.

The movie started and they sat through a full five minutes without saying a word, but neither really paying attention. Small glances were thrown at the other, lips were bitten in thought, fingers were being fidgeted with. Finally Artemis wordlessly grabbed the bowl of yummy popcorn and set it down between them.

At least if they were not going to be majorly invading each other's personal space, they could maybe possibly have one of those signature romcom moments where they both reach for the popcorn and their hands touch and magic sparkles appear.

Hey, it was a thought.

The ice was finally broken when, surprised by the impromptu metaphor war between Megamind and Metro Man, both teenagers burst out into laughing fits, feeling the air being driven out from their lungs and leaning toward the middle of the couch because there was nowhere else to go, but staying vertical was simply not an option with the way their stomach muscles insisted on contorting themselves over microwave-heated revenge.

The half-eaten chocolate popcorn bowl tumbled to the floor as Wally, wiping tears from his eyes, scooted closer and accidentally knocked it over. Artemis had another chuckle session over that—and the way he still picked up a mouthful from the floor at stuffed it into his mouth, choking just a tiny bit—, and by the time Metro Man had been obliterated, they were sitting side by side, shoulders touching and Artemis' head lightly resting against his. The automated lights in the lounge, not having detected any major movements for a while, dimmed, and all of a sudden they were presented with a considerably more intimate situation.

Electricity started buzzing between them in the nearly dark room and both were glad the other was too close to properly see their face. They still hadn't figured out the protocol for these kinds of things—well, Wally hadn't; Artemis simply didn't believe in them— and by the time "Bernard" and Roxie started hanging out, the sexual tension was kind of driving them mad.

Slowly, their hands found each other, intertwining fingers in their laps and easing the chemistry some. It was amazing how much of that pent up energy could be transferred somehow through their absent minded yet acutely aware playing with digits.

Their palms were raised slightly up in the air, still together, as the two of them examined this strange phenomenon. His arm felt as if removed from his body, such an unusual tingle was going through it. Possibly just from being near Artemis. Who was  _also_  freaking out a little about how odd yet good it felt; she had never considered herself to be the hand holding type.

Tentatively, she turned her head to look at him, leaving Megamind behind for the moment. Feeling the movement, he did the same, and the action brought their faces closer than either had anticipated. Still experiencing a strange high from their tangled fingers, Wally, without much thinking, moved closer still until his lips touched hers.

This kiss was much slower than the previous ones, dragged out to the point of torture. His unoccupied hand rose up to cradle her face while hers fisted in his hair. Their mouths moved almost lazily against each other, going purely on instinct, nibbling and teasing when it felt right. This time, with eyes closed, and some montage of Bernard and Roxie going on in the background, they took care to explore each other. His fingertips acquainted themselves with every little scar on her face while hers ran over his abs. She captured his lip between her teeth and, when she let go, laid tiny little kisses on each of his freckles. He, in turn, administered tiny bites to her ear. Her hands ran over his back and, on impulse, moved closer into him, only to slowly take him down with her, laying on the couch.

It felt so good to be here like this, she thought, seeing his face behind her eyelids. He was soft and warm, and cozy, and just so  _inviting_. She couldn't explain why she was so drawn to him—honestly, her feelings were a mystery to her—, but she knew that now that she held him in his arms, there was a distinct lack of wanting to ever let him go. His hair was standing up in tufts and felt a little like straw between her fingers—the fluffy kind; it reminded her of old school farms and plowing fields and making love in the barn after a good day's work while a storm was thundering outside. It was nice, albeit very weird; she'd never had any associations that...  _sunny_  and bright, and normal about any of the other guys she'd ever been interested in.

His mouth returned to hers, still slow, but becoming faster—he felt like he could do this all night—and his hand brushed over the backside of her thigh. Her fists were tangled in his collar, holding him close, and their noses were pressed so close together that it was actually getting fairly hard to breathe. In search of oxygen, his mouth wandered lower, down to her exquisite neck, so often hidden in her costume. He ran his teeth over every visible beat of the heart in her veins, pressing his lips gently against each of the curious triad of beauty marks below her left ear.

Wally wondered if, perhaps, this was moving too fast. Here they were, barely on their first date, unable to hold a conversation without extended awkward pauses or bickering, and he was already— woah, her hands were almost on his ass. Didn't that kinda stuff usually wait till much later?

He couldn't help but think, though, that perhaps a mostly physical relationship wasn't such a bad thing after all when she used her extended feet to push herself higher up against the armrest, bringing Wally's face closer to her chest.

"Is... anyone here?" The voice came from somewhere in the room as the lights suddenly turned on; within half a second Artemis had bolted upright, looking over the back cushions with a knife in her hand that she'd grabbed from her boot and a deadliness in her eyes, barely registering the offended noise Wally made as her actions pushed him off the couch.

Zatanna stared wide-eyed at the battle-ready blonde with flushed lips, a slightly tugged-down shirt and what looked to be a hickey forming on her neck, the movie still playing behind her. Artemis, frozen after realizing the situation, knife still in hand, felt her face fill with red as some clarity of thought came back to her. She had been so caught up in the moment that— Oh, god.

Wally pushed himself back up with a slight grunt and turned to look at the intruder as well. His frown turned into a scowl at the magician.

"I thought you were supposed to be visiting back home this weekend."

"Yeah, uh, I got bored; I'll be going now, then," Zatanna said and turned right back around, rushing away with a slightly embarrassed, mostly "YESYESYES THEY DID IT" smile and leaving the lovebirds to turn to each other and spend a good minute awkwardly exchanging stares before wordlessly turning back at the TV and resuming the pretending to watch the movie. After a moment, Artemis reached down to the floor and grabbed a handful of the spilled popcorn, causing Wally to chuckle before doing the same.

By the time the big break-up scene in the rain came on, the two of them were sneaking little glances at each other yet again. The third time one of them caught the other doing it, Artemis just shook her head with a small laugh, reached over and took Wally's hand in hers, just to be done with it. He smiled and rubbed small circles on the inside of her palm, carefully gauging her reaction. She seemed quite pleased with this turn of events.

When  _Megamind_  ended, he turned to her with a musing look in his eye. "Good movie?"

"Good movie," she said, understanding it was not the motion picture he was asking about. "Although next time we might actually try talking."

"Next time, huh? Well, I believe the ball's in your court on that one." He grinned.

"I will let you know." She got up and stretched her stiff muscles, then looked at the clock. Finding him stare at her with an appreciative look, she got the impulse to come closer and touch her lips to his again. Casually. Like couples do. "Although," she said after pulling back, "It's not that late. What's this I've been hearing about movies being accompanied by dinner meals?"

His face lit up. "What do you want to bet there's M'gann-made leftovers in the fridge?"

"Think she wouldn't mind?"

"I've got it covered," Wally reassured her, thinking of his mom. "So what would you like to talk about, miss?"


	5. Adventures on Granola

"Dude," Superboy muttered, flopping down on the couch and stretching his muscles. "Settle.  _Down_." The last word was almost hissed through gritted teeth. "You're making me dizzy just looking at you."

"Noonesaidyouhadtolookatme," Wally argued, buzzing from one corner of the lounge to the next, creating a steady breeze of yellow and red wind as he straightened up crooked photos, gathered shards of broken plates and put stray silverware and DVDs in their proper places at inhuman speeds. "Atleast _I_ _'_ _m_ beingproductive."

"If you had waited a while longer, we would all have helped out with cleaning," Kaldur said upon entering the room with a swollen lip and a fresh bandage on his right arm.

"YeahandlettheLeagueseetheplacelikethiswhentheyine vitablycometocheckonus? Nothanks." Wally disappeared into the next room which had suffered during their impromptu attack by low-ranking members of The Light who were attempting to steal back some of the tech the team had recently confiscated. "Heybabehopethatleg'sbettergottagobye."

Artemis stopped dead in her tracks at the doorway as he rushed past her and looked back at the blur of speedster with a crooked eyebrow. "Okay, uh," she said, turning back, "who gave him coffee and are they freaking  _insane_ _?_ "

"I... think I may have accidentally done that?" Raquel said from behind the kitchen, laying down on the dining table, completely soaked. "The poor guy was getting hammered by Icicle and you heard him say how he hadn't had anything to eat all day when he showed up. I pretty much grabbed the first thing I saw that would get him to battle mode. Worked, didn't it?" She shrugged, pointing at the empty caffeinated granola bar wrappers Wally had put neatly on the counter.

"Wait, what are those?" Zatanna asked, stretching her neck to see. "I thought we ran out of these a week ag—" Her eyes got wide and crimson flooded her face. "Oh, no."

"What?" Kaldur, Artemis and Raquel asked simultaneously.

"I think they're the bars I was practicing spells on a few weeks ago." Her voice was small and squeaky. "Side effects may include... hunger, lack of coordination, dizziness, hallucinations and memory loss."

Silence followed as that sunk in, then Artemis snorted. "So Raquel basically gave him magic brownies?"

"Not funny!" The magician protested. "I was gonna throw them out  _specifically_ _because_ _of_ _that_. I was just trying to create a healthier version of Red Bull. And now Wally's ingested the defective ones... Oh, if anything happens to him, it's all on m— Stop laughing!"

"Relax, Zee, with Wally's metabolism he'll sober up in no time." Artemis chuckled. "Besides, given how he's acting, I don't think those granolas worked the way you thought they would. What pothead do you know who  _cleans_ _?_ "

"You speaking from personal experience?" Zatanna cocked her head as Artemis smirked mysteriously.

"Wally, not there!" M'gann's voice came from somewhere in the living quarters, causing Artemis to bite her fist to muffle her laughter.

"You know, I've seen the guy's bedroom," Robin added with a thoughtful expression. "A cleaning binge is pretty much the last thing I would have expected from him, high  _or_  sober."

"Unless he needed to find food," Conner pointed out, eyes closed.

"But he has such a good sense for it he wouldn't have to clean a mess to find it," Robin argued.

"Perhaps we should stop discussing this unfortunate incident and help Kid Flash through it," Kaldur suggested.

"Fine, I'm on it." Artemis raised her hand. "I'm the one with the experience, after all. I still maintain he's not high, though."

"I maintain he's Wally and may not exhibit usual behavior." Robin grinned, sitting against the back of the couch with arms behind his head.

"Preachin' to the choir, buddy." Artemis' voice faded along with her retreating figure.

"Ugh, those two are  _adorable_." Zatanna stared after the archer, then sighed and turned to the torn tail end of her tailcoat to see if it could be salvaged. Robin turned to interweb browsing, Superboy was falling asleep and Rocket was drying off one second at a time, too lazy to move. Aqualad shook his head with a smile and turned to exit the area and make his mission report.

* * *

Artemis found Wally in the souvenir room, staring at Cheshire's mask with a peculiar expression on his face. He seemed to vibrate in place, yet stand perfectly still, motionless as a statue. How he managed that, she had no idea, but she was interested enough to go find out.

"Heybabeyoursister'smaskisreallyweirdhaveyounotice dhermaskisreallyweird? What'supwiththeWonderlandthemeinanycase? Isshelikeafanaticorsomething? Babe?"

"Wally." She laid a hand on his shoulder, surprised to find that he was, indeed, vibrating slightly, though not as much as he looked to be.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm _mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm_ _?_ "

"Think you could slow down a notch?"

"WhaddayameanI'mmovingataglacialpace."

"Wally."

"What?"

"You're high." She smiled softly at his narrowed eyes and furrowed brow.

"Am.  _Not_." He carefully enunciated both words, emphasizing his point.

"Are.  _Too_."

"Nuh.  _Uh_."

"Not. Your. Fault. But. Uh.  _Huh_."

They stared at each other for a good minute before Artemis rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair. "Come on, pal, time to hit the showers and sober up."

"Will you be joining me?" Wally asked absentmindedly, examining his hand to see whether it was odder than it should be. He squinted as hard as he could, but it appeared as normal as ever.

"Guess so; could use one myself, 'sides, someone's gotta make sure you don't slip, fall, and crack your skull open." She grinned.

"I wouldn't."

"This chick I knew once broke both her arms trying to get into a bathtub when she found out her parents were coming home early and the bong party had to be broken up; trust me, it's better safe than sorry." She took him by the hand and lead him to the locker room as he kept looking around at everything in sight.

"I've never been high before. I don't feel weird. Shouldn't I feel weird?"

"Honestly, I think your powers kinda messed with it. And it's probably already almost passed.  _And_  Zatanna may have overstated the potence of her spells a teeny tiny bit. Let's call it a 'light intro to getting just a little plastered'; you should really see the way you're fluttering right now from outside perspective, by the way."

"I'm what?"

"You don't feel that?" She stopped at the entrance of the communal showers and put her palms on his shoulders. He was still practically buzzing.

"Feel... what, exactly?" Wally cocked his head.

Artemis pursed her lips, then, after a moment, chuckled. "Nothing."

"You're  _preeeeetty_."

The corners of her mouth turned upward. "Well, isn't that sweet. Now take off your suit, Romeo." She bent down to unzip her boots and wiggle out of her skintight pants. "Leave the briefs," she added in case he got any ideas. He stuck his tongue out.

They stripped down to their underwear and abandoned their suits at the entrance, going to neighboring showerheads and starting up the water. Artemis figured a cold shower was probably best for Wally while she chose a scalding hot one.

The blonde couldn't stop herself from sneaking a peek or two at Wally's superbly toned, lean figure. It wasn't the first time they were in their undies together and it certainly wouldn't be the last as long as they were on the team—and, perhaps in time, for other reasons—, but it  _was_  the first one since they'd started... well, whatever it was that they'd started doing. All of a sudden Artemis realized she didn't feel any bashfulness at all about appreciating the speedster's chest anymore.

Particularly since she could also feel his gaze lingering on her half-naked body. The thought filled her with excitement.

"Ahhhh!" Wally jumped out from the blast radius of the freeze ray she called a shower head and brushed his chest, trying to get the damn-near-ice off. "What are you, crazy?"

"What? I thought you liked cold showers," she said, pouring gel in her hand and administering it to the proper places, wincing when some of the soap hit a part of her knee where the skin had been torn off.

"Yeah, cold, not hypothermia-inducing!" He tip-toed around the water to get to the controls, eyes wandering over to Artemis. Seeing her casually cover herself in soft bubbles, his eyes narrowed once again and he flung some of the icy water her way.

Her yelp could be heard on the other side of the cave, but no one came looking. "What are y— Oh, you are in big trouble, mister," she warned, her own eyes focusing on him and body assuming battle stance. She quickly flipped a button on the control panel that prevented the water from being dispersed into little streams, instead letting it drop down in one big gush, which Artemis then filled her open palms with and threw over at Wally. He dodged the waterballs easily, but in doing so he took his attention off her and her leg, which successfully managed to land a few droplets on him while he was busy avoiding the big ones.

He raced out to the locker room and grabbed a bucket, back in a flash, and filled it halfway, flinging its contents toward her; they landed just before her feet, splashing all of her legs as they exploded against the tile floor. She ran over to him and tried to drag him under the steady waterfall of freezing, but he wouldn't budge and tried to overpower her in retaliation, and somehow she ended up on his back, laughing as the two of them  _still_  tried to win the upper hand against each other.

Finally, he actually did slip, though he managed to steady himself with the help of a handle before falling. Artemis, however, fell backward as a result, and only through lightning-fast reflexes was he able to stop her backside from connecting to the floor in a painful manner. They stood there, frozen, muscles locked in place to prevent any further slipping, for a few moments, hearts beating fast over their recklessness and narrowly-avoided doom.

It was then they realized they were both standing directly under the chilling water.

They both screamed and turned to the controls to, for the sake of everything that was holy,  _turn_ _it_ _the_ _fucking h_ _ell_ _off_ , slapping each other's fingers as they had conflicting methods of doing so.

When they finally succeeded and the water stopped, the pair stayed in place, glued to the tiles, bodies trembling, lips blue and teeth clattering.

"I th-think I'm s-sober now," Wally said, brushing his upper arms.

In response, Artemis pushed him backwards till he landed right in the middle of her hot shower and let out a moan, the powerful stream immediately flattening his hair against his scalp. Artemis joined him under the blissfully hot water and he started rubbing her arms instead, eventually ending up in a close embrace, heads resting on each other's shoulders.

"Well," she said after a while, "that was interesting."

"Remind me to never play in this room again." He shuddered at the memory of both the cold shower and almost getting Artemis seriously injured.

"Psh, when do you ever listen to me?" She rolled her eyes and drew back to look at him and examine whether he was really fine. She had to move his wet hair out of his eyes before she could do so, and he did a puppy-style shake of his head, splattering her face with tiny drops of water. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but not enough for cause of alarm, and they could just as easily have come from the hot water running all over his face as Zee's spells.

He smiled at her careful examination and leaned in to lay his lips upon hers.

It was slowly becoming something normal, them kissing. No longer a fluke or a spur-of-the-moment thing; they were gradually getting used to being able to kiss each other whenever they felt like it, and to anticipating an oncoming kiss at any time. It was definitely more than a little weird to adjust the routine they'd developed over the past five months, but neither was about to complain; there were worse things to make room for in their daily lives.

Her lips were smooth against his, her arms wound around his neck and his around her bare waist. The kiss was slow—drawn out, as if they had all the time in the world. The water was still pouring over them, like rain, making the whole scene look like the end of a Hollywood romantic comedy. Or, it would if they had their eyes open and had anything else on their mind but each other.

After they had their fill, Artemis and Wally untangled and finished actually showering, scrubbing each other's backs and the like. Later, in the locker room, Wally put a towel around Artemis' neck, under her damp hair and pulled her in for another kiss. Through more kissing and laughing, they eventually managed to put some actual clothes on (and change out of their wet underwear; discreetly, of course) and went to go find out what the rest of the Team were up to.

The image they walked into in the lounge was very different from what they'd left barely an hour ago.

M'gann was sitting on the couch, her hands covering her face, sobbing and leaning into Conner, whose arms was wrapped firmly around her shoulders. Robin was still sitting on the floor, except now he was staring out into the distance and even his mask could hide the pain on his face. Kaldur was standing against the wall with crossed arms, looking down. Zatanna was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter and fidgeting with her hands while Raquel was leaning against the fridge with a hand on Zatanna's shoulder.

"Whoa, what happened?" Artemis asked, momentarily terrified. A long silence followed before Robin drew in a deep breath and finally spoke.

"Marie Logan is dead."

M'gann let out an extra whimper and Conner pressed a comforting kiss to her hair. Wally jerked back, face falling and eyes wide, and instinctively grabbed Artemis' hand.

"Queen Bee killed her," Robin added, fists tightening, jaw clenched.

Wally closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to gather his thoughts or alter the past, or stop Queen Bee from ever have existed, or  _something_. A tear rolled down his cheek at the memory of the kind, strong woman he'd met for just one day not too long ago and her son. Oh, God, her son.

"What about the kid? Is Garfield okay?"

"I haven't been able to find out." Robin sighed. "He wasn't with her, but... If he's alive, I'm sure he's scared and alone; he won't last long on his own."

"Then we have to go immediately," M'gann said, standing up and wiping her face dry. "There's no time to lose. We have to help him."

"Agreed." Kaldur straightened up. "The Bioship leaves in five. Anyone not too badly injured is welcome on board."

Moving as one, every single of the eight people in the room went to gather their things simultaneously.


	6. Being a Kid

The boy looked so tiny.

That was all Artemis could think about as he stepped off the bioship at the hangar with M'gann in tow. So tiny and sad. And scared.

The only thing on her mind was how this wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. They had all joined the team because they wanted to, even amid all their messed up pasts. Every one of them had made a conscious choice to be a part of the group. But this boy, this child... he was another person they couldn't save. Another victim of circumstance. Another child traumatized by what were supposed to be the happiest and most carefree years of his life, a time to always long to return to.

She had only met Garfield on that fateful mission a few weeks ago, already after he'd seen the car at the bottom of the cliff, but she could tell he'd lost a certain spark. From what M'gann had eagerly told her after the original mission in Bialya, he was easily excitable, talkative, brave, empathetic, and randomly going off on tangents—you know, a  _kid_. Not this miniature person carrying around all the sadness of a lifetime in his eyes, who seemed to be on the verge of breaking every time he had to breathe.

Artemis looked around, at the people she had come to consider her family. At Robin, who, from what little she had pieced together, was an orphan who's "been doing this since I was nine"; at M'gann, whose childhood was so lonely she ran away to an alien planet; at Conner, who  _had_  no childhood; at Zatanna, who had had to lose her father for what was possibly forever at the meager age of fourteen... and at herself; thinking of the rigorous training she'd undergone since practical infantry, the times she and her sister had been pitted against each other, her father's many cruel tests...

Jaw clenched as she watched Garfield's slouched small body follow M'gann to the living quarters he would now inhabit, she decided there was enough childhood trauma in these walls.

She'd give him time to heal; he deserved that much and she wasn't the right person to help him with that when she had no idea where to even begin starting to heal herself. M'gann and Wally would do much better; they were naturals with the little ones. But once he could see the daylight... It was  _so_  on. She'd make it her personal mission to give him a childhood worth remembering.

That was a promise.

* * *

"Heya," Wally said, entering the souvenir room where Artemis was looking thoughtfully at the wall, still immersed into her musings.

"Hi."

"Whatcha thinking about?" He leaned against the shelf opposite her, half-sitting on it with hands resting on his knees.

"Garfield; what else?" She sighed. "I guess it's reopening some old wounds, seeing a kid in this state. 'Course, none of my folks  _died_ , so I don't even know—" She did a sharp intake of breath and bit her lip.

"Hey, it's not a competition," Wally reminded. "And even if it were, I don't think you can really quantify trauma. It's real and it sucks, but if you've got it, you've  _got_ _it_  and that's it."

She pursed her lips. "Yeah, well..." She had nothing.

"Look, you wanna get out of here?" he asked. "There's no missions and I'm pretty sure Gar doesn't want a bunch of, well, essentially strangers hanging around while he's getting used to the place. And you look like you could use the time off."

"Don't really know where I'd go."

"I do." He raised his eyebrow, considering. "Come on, I'll show you one of my favorite spots in the whole world."

He held out his hand and, after a brief hesitation, she took it. He flashed a toothy grin and squeezed her palm, the heat radiating from him being comfort already.

He led her to the zeta tubes and they stepped out somewhere in Central City. She hadn't hung around there much and wasn't familiar with the layout, which would ordinarily have made her a little uneasy, but she was surprised to find out that as long as he was right by her, their hands intertwined, she didn't have to have full control or be on top of everything.

She...  _trusted_  him.

They zig-zagged through a labyrinth of ice-coated streets, crossed a few parks and one bridge, and stopped at a street vendor to buy Wally half a dozen hot dogs, until finally they arrived at an old-looking and abandoned playground, surrounded by patches of trees and hidden from sight to the rest of the city.

"This is it?" Artemis asked a little skeptically as Wally released her hand for the first time in half an hour and looked around with wonder on his face.

He whirled around and pointed at her. "Hey, no bashing this place; I know it doesn't look like much, but it's  _awesome_. I used to come here all the time when I was a kid and some of my very best memories were made here. Go on, try it," he said, nodding toward the swing.

Her brow furrowed. "Wally, I've been on a swing before."

"Have you? Have you  _really_ _?_ " His tone was playful as he guided her to it and sat her down.

"Uh,  _yes_ , stupidhead." She rolled her eyes. "Who hasn't?"

"Ah, yes, but how many people can you name who routinely do the 360?" He pushed her forward.

"The what? Dude, I can get myself in the air." She demonstrated her point, leaning all the way back and getting her head above the top beam. She turned back and smirked at him, pressing a kiss to his lips when she came back down.

"Yeah, but me doing this is way better." He backed up fifteen paces with a grin on his face.

"Doing what, exa— _Ahhhhhhh_ _!_ " She held on for dear life as he ran straight at her, timing it perfectly so that he could push Artemis from her most backward point way out in the air with a force that only ceased once she had made a full circle around the bar and then some. Frozen, not initiating any movement of the swing, she quickly came to a standstill, staring forward at Wally's returning form.

"Huh? Was that great or what?" He laid a hand on her shoulder with an excited smile. She did not say a word. "Don't worry, it's completely safe. After Uncle Barry found out this was my new favorite pastime, he reinforced the beam and chains so I don't snap off mid-air; see?" He pointed upward to what looked to be delicate handywork. His eyes returned to hers—still wide and unblinking—and his face fell. "You hated it. I scared you. Sorry; I thought it'd be a thrill." He grimaced apologetically.

She finally blinked and swallowed, stammering out one word. "Again."

His eyes lit up in surprise. "Really?"

"Uh huh." A slow smile spread across her face and she gripped the chains once more.

He pressed a quick kiss to her lips and ran past her, waiting till she gained enough momentum on her own before racing back and pushing her up again with so much force he couldn't stop running for twenty yards.

" _Whoooo_ _!_ " Her eyes were closed, her mouth open and her expression exhilarated as she went around the beam three full times, hair flying in the wind and full of stray snowflakes it had picked up in the air. When the swing still kept going into the fourth circle—but she could tell it wouldn't go all the way around—, she leapt forward, doing a somersault, ready to land on her feet without a scratch when a certain speedster caught her bridal-style and ran around the playground a few times before stopping at the roundabout and setting her down.

"Hold on tight," he warned, gearing up to spin it with all his might. Artemis sat cross-legged on the cold wood and started laughing as the construction started moving, squeezing her eyes shut and biting into her lip. He jumped on and joined her, dropping to stand on his arms in the very centre of the moving wheel, his parka dropping and exposing the skin of his abdomen.

"Wally, what the bejesus are you doing?" Artemis held a hand to her mouth to muffle her startled snort.

"Having fun; what's it look like?" He spun around in the opposite direction of the wheel and fell forward back-first, executing a perfect roll and landing cross-legged right in front of her.

"Sometimes I think you're insane."

"Only sometimes?" He pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"So this is how you spent your childhood?" she asked. "Doing circus tricks on a playground?"

"Well, not so much childhood as pre-teen years, but yeah, pretty much. When I wanted to become The Flash's sidekick, this was pretty much my training ground before I got my powers."

"Yeah, how did that happen anyway?" Artemis brushed snow out of her hair as the roundabout slowed. "I mean, you were, what, twelve? Thirteen? How does a kid like that know how to get superspeed?"

"Ehh, he left some notes lying around about his own accident and I kinda... stole some of his equipment." He smiled sheepishly. "It wasn't really that hard to figure out once I had a reference point to go on, but I probably could have done better and not ended up in the hospital." He shrugged.

"Wait, wait, back up," Artemis said, holding up her hands. "You  _stalked_  The Flash?"

" _What_ _?_ " His eyes went wide. "No, he's my uncle. Uncle Barry. The same one who reinforced the swing. Didn't I mention that?"

"No, you... did not." She cocked her head, wrapping her head around this new information.

"Well, uhm, he is. Oh, and the first Flash is a family friend," he added. "Shh, don't tell anyone." He winked.

"So, family business, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so. You too, right? I mean, villainy aside, your fam's some of the best in the biz."

She chuckled. "I'd be proud if I weren't so resentful."

"Do you, uh, have any contact with them?" Wally asked, a little timid.

"Well, I live with my mom; she's out of the game and pretty much pushing me head-first towards a future on the right side of the law, but other than that... not really." Artemis looked down at her twisted hands. "Although Jade did save my life a couple weeks back," she added, face softening at the memory. "Part of me kinda misses my big sister, but, you know, we chose different paths. Nothing to do about it, really."

He laid his hand on hers and squeezed it. "Maybe someday she'll come around."

"I wouldn't hold your breath." She sighed. "Wally?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for bringing me here. This is a really cool place."

"Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet." He pointed to the slide and wiggled his eyebrows.

" _And_ ," she continued pointedly, "for, you know, sharing. I'm not really used to that. And there's still so much we don't know about each other; all of us, actually."

"Well, hey, I live just a few blocks over," he said. "My mom should be home soon and I'm sure she would  _love_  to fill your ears with aaaaaaaaaaaall kinds of embarrassing stories about me."

Her ears perked up. "Embarrassing stories, you say?"

"Lots of 'em," he confirmed, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I gotta say, then—you know me pretty well, Baywatch; I'm sold. Let's go."

"You know, we don't have to go right this second," he added when she started getting up. "The slide is waiting for you." He gestured toward it like a butler.

* * *

"So this is where Wally West lives," Artemis mused, taking in the snow-covered house with a porch, two storeys, and a curved wall that probably had a cozy reading space on the other side of it. "It looks so... normal."

"What else did you expect?" He chuckled. "Apart from having super powers and slightly unorthodox eating habits, I'm pretty much as normal as you can get."

"Yeah, I know, I just thought— I don't know; with all the things I've learned about the team in the last few months, I kinda figured that everyone had some deep scar or messed up life."

"They do." Wally pursed his lips. "Huh, guess I'm the odd man out. Except Kaldur. 'S far as I know, his life's pretty normal, too."

"So, you, like, have a fully functioning family?" she asked as he lead her to the door.

"Yep, pretty much."

"How does that work?"

"I dunno; never really thought about it." He frowned. "Guess I got lucky, huh?"

"You have no idea," she muttered so low he couldn't hear.

"So, anyway, welcome to Casa de West! This here is the living room, where we attempt to live, and over there is the kitchen; it's probably the best-stocked in the entire neighborhood. Oh, speaking of which, I'm hungry." He ran to browse the fridge and cupboards. "You want anything?" he asked, mouth full of bread.

"Uh, no thanks, I'm good." Artemis looked around and went over to a bookcase to check out a string of framed photos. She took off her winter jacket and set it on the couch, sitting on the edge as she continued examining the various photos placed around the room.

"That's me at science camp," Wally commented with a tray of ice cream in his hands, walking back to the living room, "That's us in Canada—weirdest encounter I've ever had with a moose, by the way—, aaand that's Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry's wedding, which I kinda wrecked, but just a little tiny bit," he added, counting off the frames, "and over there is me after my first run as a speedster; 'course you can't tell that by the photo alone, though, and, hmm, what else... Oh! This one here is of my parents on their twelfth anniversary. That's an embarrassing story my mom will  _definitely_  tell you if you give her the chance, so, you know, don't. For my sake."

"Oh, Wally; don't you know that just makes me more curious?" She raised her eyebrow.

"Ehhh, I figured it would, but it's honestly not that big of a deal. I just tried to throw them an  _interesting_  surprise party for once and... ended up getting arrested instead. You know, regular kid shenanigans."

"Wh—" She snorted. "How did you manage that?"

He paused and bit into his lip, setting the container down on the couch behind him. "...I was not aware homemade explosions were illegal." After a brief silence, he joined her in a laugh. "Come on, I was ten; gimme a break."

"Uh, you know what," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and chuckling once more, "I take back what I said about you being normal. You're just as full of surprises any of us." Her lips pressed to his with a smile, tasting the mint chocolate chip ice cream on his tongue. His arms wound around her waist and supported her when she raised her knees to rest on the back of the couch on either side of him. The action put her head above his, lips still never breaking contact, enabling her to kiss him with a new fervor.

His breath was hot against hers, mouth just as intense, and hands slid down to her backside on their own accord. Her fingers fisted in his hair and legs tightened around his hips. Her hands drew his head back to get a new angle for kisses, perhaps plant a few on the pulse on his neck, but in her passion she miscalculated and he lost his balance, falling backward on the couch and taking her down with him.

Mary West found them like that, entangled horizontally with legs in the air, still making out as fervently as ever. She cleared her throat.

They didn't hear anything.

"Wallace," she said and Artemis' head snapped up, lips red, hand on his collar and her legs in a fairly compromising position. "Is there someone you would like to introduce me to?"


	7. Pictures of You

Artemis rolled off Wally and jumped upright, adjusting her top with fidgety fingers—it had bunched up during the makeout session and left her abdomen exposed—and smoothing her hair as she waited for her boyfriend, usually equipped with much better reflexes than hers, to get up from his upside down position on the couch and introduce her to his mother.

He seemed to be in no hurry, though, his eyes still glazed with that "I got to kiss a pretty girl" afterglow and a satisfied smirk generally smeared all over his face.

"Hi, mom." He grinned lazily and put his hands behind his head, perfectly comfortable. Artemis kicked his head with her knee almost imperceptibly. "I felt that," he muttered.

"Hello, son," Mary said with crossed arms and an amused expression. "Who's this young lady?"

"That would be Artemis, a teammate of mine." He crossed his legs, still upside down and went back to munching on ice cream. "You may know her as Green Arrow's sidekick. Artemis, that's my mom. She rocks."

"N— uh, nice to meet you, Mrs. West," Artemis said, avoiding eye contact and desperately wishing Wally would stop eating and stand up.

"Hmm..." Mary gave her a once-over. "Same goes for you, Artemis. I have to say, after everything Wally's told us about you, I didn't exactly expect..." she trailed off, then huffed a breath and tightened her eyes, evaluating. "Well, you're here now, so we'd best get to know each other. Starting with how long you two have been a couple and why no one's told me anything about that." She turned away and went into the kitchen to put away the groceries with an entertained smile.

Artemis immediately glared at Wally. "Get your ass up off that couch and come mediate!"

He chuckled. "Mediate what? You two just met; you need some bonding time. 'Sides, you knew she was gonna be here, so what's the problem?"

"The problem is that— that you lured me in with the promise of dirt, which overshadowed the actual premise of what is going on, which is meeting the parents, which  _I_ _am_ _not_ _ready_ _for_." She took a deep breath and kneeled down. "Wally, seriously, I've never done this. I have no idea what to do. I can't— I can't do this."

He looked at her for a minute, examining the well-masked fear in her eyes and the sweat glistening on her palms. Finally, he settled rolling sideways into a sitting position opposite Artemis and took her hands in his. "Fine," he agreed. "I'll take care of it; you can go upstairs and snoop in my room. I'll be right with you." He pressed his lips to her forehead and got up, headed toward the kitchen.

Artemis exhaled in relief and ran her fingers through her messy golden locks as she watched Wally make his way toward the kitchen. She didn't want to intrude, so she quickly made her way up the wooden steps and out of hearing range.

The absolutely ridiculous amount of stickers (both of The Flash kind and not), most of which looked to be pretty old, and a stray sock abandoned on the handle gave his door away as the one on the far end of the hall; it hanged a quarter open and was just begging to be sneaked into. Even if having permission made it slightly less fun.

Artemis smirked and tiptoed across the hall, pushing the door as quietly as she could, eager to see a whole new side of the boy downstairs.

Who, meanwhile, was leaning against the kitchen counter with a stick of celery in his hand, waving it about between periodically taking bites as his mother pestered him with questions.

"Mom, look,  _I_ _'_ _m_ _sorry_  I didn't tell you, but, you know, it's been new and kinda weird and I don't really know where it's going or if we're gonna survive one more day or the next."

"Oh, really?" Mary asked, motioning for him to help sort the groceries. "You two looked pretty cozy on the couch."

"Yeah, strangely that happens to be the one thing we're good at." He grinned. "But still, uncharted waters.  _All_  the way." He reminded with a finger. "Which is why I hope you won't mind if we're just gonna retire upstairs. Out of sight, out of mind... out of parental supervision..." he added innocently, "you know, the ushe."

"I'm just still surprised Artemis is the one you've been so weird about in the past month. Given the way you've been talking about her since the two of you met, I was under the impression you two couldn't stand each other."

"Mom, seriously, I love you, but it's like you don't know how teenagers work at all;  _jeez_."

She smiled at that and then let out a sigh. "Wally?" she put down her things and looked him in the eye.

"Yes, mother?"

"Is there anything I should know about going on between the two of you?"

"Nnnnnnnnnooooooooooo. And if or when the time comes, I can't promise I'll tell you. But you should know that she's awesome and I'm awesome and we're, you know, awesome together. For now. I think. Maybe. Actually, I don't know. It's still so confusing. But I like her. And you will too. Once she gets comfortable enough to, you know, move her mouth and make sounds come out of it while you're in the room." He winked and grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds, throwing them up in the air one by one to eat them and heading upstairs himself. Mary just shook her head with a small laugh and went to hang up her coat and warm her hands with hot water.

Wally cautiously approached his room, a bit fearful of what he might find there—Artemis with his Flash boxers or rifling through his yearbook, or perhaps looking at his old science camp experiments, wondering just what kinda dork he was.

Instead, he found her crouched down in front of his dresser, staring intensely at the row of pictures lined up on top of it with a wondrous smile. It made her whole face light up and he was dumbstruck by just how beautiful she was. Hot, yeah; that he knew. Also impish. Strong. Agile. A little annoying. And such a teaser—in more ways than one. But it was rare that he noticed how the sunlight reflected off her smooth, bronzed skin, or the way her hair fell in natural waves that somehow gave off the illusion of being stiff and straight. Or her full lips, glistening when she ran her tongue over them yet again in deep thought. Or her eyes, so mysterious, yet so open.

She was magnificent. And, to be honest, it scared him.

Her ears sensed his presence when he shifted from one foot to the other and she turned her head, widening her smile just a tiny bit at him.

"Did you know you're adorable?" she asked, pointing to the pictures with slight surprise. "I mean, you've got that whole floppy hair and sprinkled freckles thing got going on, which some may find attractive and possibly even handsome, but, holy shit, you're a cutie patootie!" She snorted, not quite sure if she was making fun of him or just amazed.

He took a step closer and peered at the photos. "Ah, yes, cookie sale ten years ago. Very adorable summer for me."

"I'm amazed you didn't eat them all."

"Hey, I used to have a normal appetite once upon a time. I think."

"Is that so?" she mused, straightening out and running her eyes all over him with a tongue in cheek, considering.

"It is." He took a step closer, then another one, until they were mere inches apart, staring each other down with challenge in their eyes.

"Well..." She looked down to his lips for just a second and lightly touched his collar.

"I suppose..." she leaned in closer.

"I'll just have to go dig up your old birthday photos and see you without cake crumbs on your face for myself." She snaked out of his loose hold with a chuckle, ignoring his disappointed whine, and jogged over to his shelf, looking over all his memorabilia. "Ah, this seems to be what I'm looking for," she said, grabbing an ornate, leather-bound volume and flipping it open. "A bit fancy, are we?"

"Hey, that thing contains, like, my entire life," he argued. "I'm an only child; my parents wanted a special frame."

"Huh," she muttered absentmindedly, flicking over the pages with fast-changing expressions. Wally came over behind her to look over her shoulder and throw in comments here and there, making her laugh and, occasionally, giving her fuel for teasing. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he yanked the photo album out of her hands faster than she could see. Taken aback, Artemis stood motionlessly, staring at him with confusion in her features. His face quickly morphed from surprise of his own to a kind of apologetic embarrassment.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I gotta take a couple of photos out and then I'll give it right back to you. I just forgot those were in there," he added. Her eyes tightened.

"If that's your way of hiding embarrassing pictures from me, I think we already established that you—"

"No, it's not that," he cut her off, scratching behind his ear and shifting from one foot to the other. "It's, uh..." He paused. "Robin in civvies. Well, both of us, but I mean you already know what I look like."

"Wh— wait, you've actually seen Boy Wonder without sunglasses?" Artemis crossed her arms, impressed.

"Uh,  _yeah_ , best friends and all." He looked almost insulted at the question. "And based on a certain thing he mentioned to me once, so have you."

"I— No, I haven't!" She snorted.

"Exactly." He looked at her meaningfully. "You know how paranoid he and Bats are. It's probably imperative that you, of all people, don't see these pictures, so I'm just gonna take them out."

"But— Ugh, where would I even have have seen him?" Artemis scowled and jumped on the bed, distraught by this news.

"Well, you both live in Gotham, don't you?"

"Yeah, along with ten million other people." She rolled her eyes. "Not to mention I'm pretty sure he's rich, correct me if I'm wrong, and I live in a pretty bad neighborhood."

"Well, you never know. Just let me do this, okay? You can take it up with him later." He opened the album against his chest, hiding the contents from her, and carefully took four photos out, one by one.

She huffed out a breath. "I'm sorry, I still have trouble believing there's any universe in which I wouldn't recognize that laugh of his."

Wally chuckled. "Yeah, that one's a long shot. Maybe he makes an effort not to laugh when you're around?"

"Awful lot of trouble for a secret identity."

"Well, they have their reasons. Anyway, it should be good now." He handed it back to her. She weighed it in her palms for a bit, then set it down on the bed next to her with pursed lips.

"Wally?"

"Yeah?"

"My..." She took a breath. "My name is Artemis Lian Crock."

"Oh." He mulled that over, desperately trying not to show how much the simple sentence meant to him. Gotta keep things normal. "Not Crocker?"

"No. Crock."

"Not Crocket?"

"No." She emphasized. "Just  _Crock_."

"'Cause that would rhyme with 'pocket' and that just makes me think of how cute you'd be if you were two inches tall and, like, had your own tiny world." He grinned, then winced when she lightly jabbed him in the stomach. "And were still able to kick my ass, of course."

"I'm not a toy, Wally."

"Whoa, who said you were a toy?" He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. "I'll have you know that one of my favorite childhood books was The Little Man, not to be confused with The Little Prince—which also happens to be excellent, by the way—by some old German guy whose name I can't pronounce, about this five-year-old boy, Maxie, who was a Liliput, I think, and was literally less than two inches tall and had to step on a tiny ladder to be able to read books and he assisted his adopted, regular-sized father in circus tricks and got really skilled at pickpocketing the customers. You know, 'cause nobody would see him 'cause he was so tiny. Actually, now that I think about it, the book was kinda weird." He grimaced, remembering. "But anyway, it was cute. And he was a real athletic dude, too; climbing up and down his father's jacket was pretty much like rock-climbing for him."

Artemis opened her mouth, then closed it again. "I don't know what to be more surprised at—that your favorite book was about miniature circus people or that the first thing that came to your mind when you thought 'things that rhyme with Crock' was 'pocket'."

She watched him stare at her in confusion and then his ears slowly turn scarlet as he grasped the meaning of her words.

"Well." He coughed. "Uh, that would just be inappropriate."

She smirked. "Didn't even occur to you, did it?"

"Nope." He paused. "So, is my reputation ruined now or...?"

"I won't tell anyone if you won't say anything about this." She laid her mouth on his and gently pushed him down on the covers, letting her hair fall over them like a curtain.

"You mean, like," Wally started between kisses, "mention this," he continued, " _specific_  instance to anyone else," he said, "or keeping our makeouts a secret in general?" he asked. "'Cause I gotta tell you, I think the ship has sailed on the second one."

"Wally."

"Yes?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

"Yeah, okay, I can do that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Little Man by Erich Kästner (author of Lottie and Lisa, also known as The Parent Trap) is one of my personal favorites. It really is adorable and fascinating, and if you can find it in your language, I really recommend reading it. As well as The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, if you haven't already.


	8. When It Gets Hard To Breathe

"So, he's started eating again?" Artemis asked, polishing her arrows on the floor against the back of the couch and wincing at the slight stabbing in her shoulder when she bent her arm the wrong way.

"Yes, thankfully," M'gann said, shifting out of her uniform and into a regular outfit with a pink apron on top, starting to fiddle with a bag of flour. "I managed to get a recipe out of him a few days ago; even though I hate the look in his eyes when he smells it and comes looking for Marie, it's the only thing he'll eat." She sighed. "I guess even the painful part of home is better than no home at all."

"As someone who's lost most of her home herself, I can attest to that," Zatanna said, sitting on the counter and chewing on a cucumber. "I saw him intercept Wally on his way to the souvenir room, though; if I know KF at all, the kid's gonna come out knowing every story behind those things and start a catalogue for them or something."

"At least it'd give him something to do," Raquel pointed out from the couch where she was stretching her muscles. "If I were all alone and suddenly in the middle of an entirely new place and people, I'd probably shut off, too. He's not going to school, is he?"

"No," M'gann said, mixing the batter. "Uncle J'onn thought it would be too much at once, especially since we don't know how long he's going to be staying here and switching homes is already hard enough without entering new schools as well. I've been trying to slip a little learning in here and there, but I figure that's the least of his worries right now."

"So there haven't been any developments on his father?" Artemis asked.

"None that I know of. Batman and Robin are still looking, but Gar's never met him. I'm not sure I even like the idea of handing him off to a stranger."

"Of course you don't," Zatanna muttered, chuckling softly.

"What?" M'gann started pouring the mix into pans, inhaling deeply over the stove as the pancakes-to-be started fizzling.

"No, I just mean that I've seen the way you are with Gar over the last few weeks. You've gotten really attached, M'gann," Zee said. "And right now that's a good thing because he needs someone on his side. You might just be the person who cares about him most in the entire world. But there's a possibility you're not and that whoever is will come and whisk him away. I just don't want you to get hurt, that's all."

"Well, it's not like I'm entertaining some fantasy of being a mother or a big sister or anything," M'gann said, deep in thought. "I know we're practically strangers ourselves and that he must have someone out there; someone who is really,  _really_  good at hiding." Her hands clenched. "But it's a role that needs to be filled  _now_  and I don't mind doing it. He's such a sweet boy. He doesn't deserve this."

"Maybe he deserves you," Artemis said quietly. "Look, I'm just throwing this out there, but what if there  _is_  no one else? I mean, we saw how secluded his house is; there must not have been that many people he knew at all. And those he does could be dangerous, for all we know. Just because you're blood doesn't mean you're good for each other." She cast her eyes down, staring at her arrows. "All I'm getting at is that you said it yourself how he called you his sister in those letters before the accident."

"Blood sister," M'gann corrected.

"A sister nonetheless. And you've always wanted a sibling on Earth, right? Maybe that's a way to get some good out of a bad situation."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't really know." Artemis sighed. "I guess I just don't want the kid to learn that family doesn't mean blood and vice versa the hard way. Maybe I'm just projecting my own issues onto you guys, but you've really been great with him, M'gann." She smiled encouragingly and tucked her hair behind her ear, wincing again as the motion made her shoulder sting. "Aw, forget it; I'm heading to the showers before my uniform becomes permanently attached to my skin."

"Need any help?" Zatanna asked, turning her head to watch the archer leave.

"Nah, I'll manage."

"Oh, right. That wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a certain redhead who got dragged through mud today, would it?"

"I... have no idea what you're talking about." Artemis tried to keep the smirk out of her voice and failed miserably.

"Sure you don't. Be a dear and close the door behind your lying ass, would you?" Zee batted her eyelashes innocently.

Artemis stuck her tongue out at her.

* * *

 

She found Wally, as predicted, in the communal locker room, shaking his head at inhuman speeds to dry his hair with nothing but a towel hung low around his narrow hips.

The sight of his bare, pale abdomen, glistening in the subtle lighting from the shower room, and the slightest hint of an Adonis belt sneaking down into his towel stopped her dead in her tracks, sending a rush of heat to pool in her own belly, suddenly making her chest impossible to lift. The air around her felt like water—heavy, dense, and entirely unsuitable for inhaling—and she took small, shallow breaths, trying to find the tiniest hint of oxygen in the room.

There was none to be found, yet somehow she did not suffocate. Her vision tremored every three quarters of a second, perfectly synchronized with the drumming in her ears and the pounding on her neck.

She lifted a hand to her collar in a miserable attempt to calm her heartbeat, but the jerky motion only sent a rush to her already lightheaded brain and she had to grab the nearest wall in order to keep herself from stumbling.

He heard that, and looked at her, flashing his trademark toothy grin. The skin stretched over his biceps and the muscles of his torso made the most delightful twisting motions as he half-turned to face her, feet still planted in the previous position. His hair was still dripping and his cheeks were a bit red from the insane pressure she'd learned he preferred in the shower, and she could swear that if only her head stopped throbbing, she'd be able to count the freckles on his shoulders.

"Hey," he said, his deep, forest-like eyes lively and fixed upon her with the smallest of wrinkles in the corners, brought there by smiling so much. She blinked furiously, trying to avert her gaze from the pulsing vein where his shoulder and neck were connected. It was as if she was mesmerized; hypnotized by the tiny rainbows sparkling in the droplets on his chest.

Artemis tried to speak, but her throat was drier than the desert soil and nothing but a weak croak came out. She closed her mouth and summoned all her will to remember how to swallow, feeling the cool slickness wet the long organ and run down the wall along her lungs, calming her breathing situation to boot.

"Hi... Wally."

"You next in line?" He ran his fingers through the messy hair and reached for deodorant. "What, do I have something on my face?" he asked after a moment of silence as she just stared at him, unable to focus on anything but the way his towel was slowly sinking further and further down, revealing more of his hipbones, ones she'd give anything to run her hands—or maybe lips—over right now.

"I, uh..." She cleared her throat, desperately wishing he wouldn't notice her extremely uncharacteristic behavior. "No, I just didn't expect you to be here, that's all."

"I thought I mentioned—"

"Yeah, no, but I thought that would be later." She returned her gaze to his, trying to steady her vital signs with sheer willpower. "I can come bac—"

"Oh, hey, by the way, is that shoulder still bleeding or did it stop?" He turned away to rummage through his locker, completely at ease, giving her a perfect view of his toned back, which rippled with every movement of his arms. And the towel hung just low enough to provide a perfect image of his dimples of Venus, which were so chiseled and clear-cut that she let out a small whimper as her knees nearly buckled.

What had she done to deserve this? This torture... glorious... painful... torture.

She lowered her eyelids and bit her lip, vowing to stop hyperventilating—this time,  _for_ _sure_ —and making yet another attempt to steady her heart. But it was no good. She could still hear him breathing, in that way only he did. It was too fast and yet drawn out. Shallow and calm, but loud. A kind of quiet, underlying cackling, or maybe screeching came from his lungs every time exhaled, and the sound reminded her of sand running through the cracks in her gathered palm on a windy summer day.

"Artemis?" he turned around to examine the archer who was currently slouching against a wall with closed eyes and a mildly pained expression on her face. He, however, took it to mean something entirely different than the fire Artemis was feeling. "Hey, are you okay?" Wally raced over to her side, taking her face gently in his hands and looking toward the wound on her shoulder blade. "Yikes, that looks nasty. I think it's stopped bleeding, though. We'd better get you out of this suit before we have to take off half your skin with it, huh?"

He lead her to a bench, unaware of the turmoil the mere touch of his fingers to her arm was causing Artemis. Her senses were hyper around the seven small dots where his skin met hers, radiating in lighting-like circles over her entire elbow area, and she's pretty sure she felt tingles.

She wished he would take his hand away, but at the same time she never wanted him to stop.

He swept her ponytail out of the way and slowly tugged down the zipper on the back of her top, carefully peeling the material off the wound, desperate not to hurt her. But as his fingertips brushed her back or shoulder here and there, the last thing on her mind was pain.

All she could think about was the lean, all but naked runner standing behind her, touching so lightly it wasn't possible to be any more feather-like. Artemis was acutely aware of his every movement, every breath, as if her entire existence depended on it. She wondered whether he truly did not feel this. If he really was as at ease as he appeared to be.

He wasn't.

Her skin was so smooth, so taut, so magnificent it nearly made his mouth water. His own heartbeat spiked with every time they made contact and he hung onto her every breath, of which there were more than was normal. His palms lingered longer and longer each time they made contact with her and Wally was suddenly becoming very aware of the fact that he was wearing nothing but a towel.

When he was finished taking off her top and she was left in a bra and pants, Artemis got up and tried to turn toward him, hesitant. Feeling exactly the same pull as she did, Wally took a step closer and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his lips against the shoulder that was left intact in the mission earlier in the evening.

Her eyes immediately closed again and she gasped just the tiniest bit, reveling in the feeling of his hot breath and wet mouth on something other than her own. His lips traveled lower, brushing over the collection of beauty marks on her back, and his fingers caressed her abdomen. She laid her hands on his and drew her head back, making it irresistible for him to travel to the side of her neck. He nibbled and administered little bites, smiling softly at the breathy moan she let out at that, before traveling back to the shoulder and dragging her bra strap down with his teeth.

At this, she couldn't take it anymore, and spun around in his arms, pressing herself tightly against him and capturing his mouth with hers. She was fast, she was demanding and she made his head get a rush like nothing else. Her hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer and closer, until neither of them were sure they knew what air was anymore. His fingers dug into her back as his teeth ran over her full bottom lip and he was loving every second of it.

They were fused so close together, it wasn't really clear how they weren't breaking the laws of physics, but neither Wally nor Artemis cared much at the moment. They were too caught up in the passion, noticing little else but the heat of their bodies against each other. Her hands ran down his back, igniting a path of flames on either side of his spine before settling on his hips and making little circles over his Adonis belt. She had to admit, she very much enjoyed the way the muscles beneath her digits quivered with every little touch.

It was then that the towel decided to fall off.

He was the first to freeze, pull back and open his eyes, his ability to think slowly coming back to him, just as slowly as realizing where he was and what he was doing.

She took a few seconds longer, running her tongue over her lips, savoring the taste of him, but she, too, got the memo of awkwardness.

"You're naked."

"Yep."

"I'm almost topless."

"That would be correct."

They stared at each other for a full two minutes, still entangled and not daring to look at anything but each other's faces before Wally finally cleared his throat and spoke.

"Well, that was fun. I, uh," he said, sucking air in through his teeth, "I'm gonna let you go take care of cleaning that wound now, I guess."

"Yeah, that's probably best," she agreed, still completely wrapped around him. They remained unmoving.

"On three?" he suggested.

"Sure."

They let each other go and immediately turned away, cheeks flushed from both the elevated heart rate and embarrassment, although neither of them could stop themselves from sneaking a glance or two.

Several minutes passed in complete silence as they went about their business. "Hey, Artemis," Wally started when he was almost fully dressed and she on the other side of the wall, about to run the water, "it's after midnight." He paused. "Happy Valentine's day. I know we haven't really talked about any plans, but, uh..."

"My day is wide open." She smiled and leaned around the doorframe to kiss him. "Just name the time and place."

"I'll pick you up at seven." He grinned. "Wear something... unrestricting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, before you say anything, I did the math. Wally and Artemis have spent a total of six Valentine's days together, and if the latest would have been the fifth time he forgot if he hadn't actually remembered, that means he remembered the first one as well. I actually had a whole different thing planned before I realized this, but that will have to wait until Team Year Two.


	9. HEARTS AND CANDY: Take One

"Artemis, stop fidgeting," Paula ordered, struggling to keep hold on the golden hair in her hands. Her fingers were expertly weaving dozens of strands from the top of her daughter's head into tiny little braids, which she then combined among themselves into a complicated pattern. They'd been at it for almost an hour already and seven was fast approaching; Artemis was getting impatient.

"I don't remember this taking so long when I was younger," she grumbled, sitting cross-legged on the floor as frozen as she could while applying eyeliner.

"Your hair has grown since you were younger," her mother pointed out, smiling at the long locks, her pride and joy. Well, one of. Her younger daughter was a source of great pride in general, but seeing her two children both not plagued by the hair thinness that had haunted her family for generations made her so very happy. She supposed it was at least one thing she could thank Lawrence for.

"Yeah, but everything seems to take longer when you're a kid. I thought that when it actually  _did_  take longer, it would feel around the same." Artemis shrugged and was immediately reminded to hold still. "How soon will it be done? I have to go change. Wally could be here any minute."

"Just a little while more," Paula said, fingers moving with great agility and speed. The braids were becoming shorter every second, as she found a place for each of them in the messy, round net resting on top of the rest of Artemis' loose hair, falling gently down her shoulders. The bangs she'd cut herself a year ago had grown out to halfway down her cheeks and were currently framing her face in soft, slight curls as all other hair from the front of her head was drawn back into the braids. "You've asked me to do this style for the first time in two years; I want to do it right. I still remember the little girl who would make me braid her hair whenever there was anything even remotely resembling a special occasion coming up. Ponytails suit you, but I've missed your braids, Artemis."

"Yeah, I've missed them too," Artemis admitted, putting the finishing touches on the cat eye, her hands steady as a surgeon's. "I guess I just haven't found the time lately."

"I'm glad this boy prompted you to find the time."

"Wally has nothing to do with it, mom."

"You are going to see  _him_ , no? On a Valentine's day, no less. I don't recall either of my daughters ever celebrating Valentine's day before."

"You're making this a bigger deal than it is; I just wanted to dress up to my best— _because_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _kind_ _of_ _happy_ _right_ _now_ _and_ _life i_ _s_ _looking_ _up_ _,_ _and_ _I_ _wanted_ _to_ _look_ _how I_ _feel_ —and your braids happen to be my best. Nothing more to it."

"If you say so, dearest daughter," Paula allowed, fastening the last of the braids in place and leaning back to admire her handiwork. "Hmm. You know what this needs? Flowers."

"I have a better idea," Artemis said and got up, running into her room hurriedly and rummaging through her drawers. "It has to be here somewhere," she muttered, turning to her closet and jumping to reach the box of miscellaneous junk on the top shelf. "Ah, found it!" She ran back into Paula's room and poured a small collection of blood-colored, clear-cut crystals into her mother's hand. They had small holes at the top, presumably for beading onto necklaces, and Paula used them to secure the crystals onto tiny hairpins, which she then put onto Artemis' hair, in the spots where the delicate braids crossed each other.

"Perfect." Paula smiled in approval, heart bursting with love for her daughter, currently more beautiful than most everything else in the world.

"Thanks, mom. Okay, now I really have to hurry." She brushed her mother's shoulder and planted a kiss on her cheek in thanks, then raced to her closet, digging through it to the very corner, to a certain garment she had bought on a whim and had worn only once.

She grinned in excitement as her eyes and fingers ran over the bright, red fabric.

* * *

 

Wally raced through the streets of Gotham, criss-crossing between the cars on the motorcycle he habitually rented when he wanted to clear his head, but didn't want to go to The Cave to do so. The wind was sharp against his leather jacket, but the day itself was warmer than was typical around this time of year. The sun had recently set, and the world was in a beautiful, some would say magical, state right between no longer being bright and not yet becoming completely dark.

He consulted the map of the city that was attached to the handle, where Artemis had drawn him a big blue dot once she'd come out of the shower the night before. She'd thought that perhaps it was best to meet up at the cave and proceed via the zetas from there, but he had insisted on doing this properly. No superhero talk, no using of powers or gadgets, no bad guys to beat. Just the two of them. Going on a Valentine's Day date. Like normal teenagers.

Of course, he'd still taken the zeta from Central City, but he stepped out a good hour away from Gotham in order to drive the rest of the way and get wind in his head. Nerves were the last thing he wanted to be overcome by tonight.

He followed Artemis' directions to a large, short, and brown brick apartment building on the north side of the city. Although it wasn't so much large as he simply couldn't tell where one building ended and the next began; they were all so similar. The architecture was beautiful and precise, as was that of most houses in this area, but the few broken windows with logs nailed over them and broken or uneven blinds hanging here and there indicated it wasn't as well maintained as it could have been. Though the lights and soft curtains in other windows looked more inviting and homey than most other homes he'd ever been in.

He took off his helmet and stepped off the bike, making his way up the clean, sturdy, bronze-colored stairs and pressing the buzzer.

"Wally?" Artemis answered.

"It's me, babe."

"Come on up. Third floor, second door on the left."

He pulled the door and stepped inside, immediately whelmed by the sense of history here—the railing was delicately carved wood that seemed to have been shiny once, but become matted with extensive use, with a few cracks here and there; the floor was tiled with what looked like polished cement, painted all kinds of different patterns and colors, worn out at the exit; there was a distinct smell of cat fur and cleaning detergent in the air, with the slightest hint of fresh tree bark. It was exactly the way you'd expect a not-so-new building with permanent tenants to look and smell.

By the way Artemis had talked about her home, he had expected something very different. He wasn't exactly sure what—since she rarely did—but not this.

He chuckled to himself and made his way up the stairs, looking back one last time and memorizing his surroundings, just in case he screwed up tonight and was never allowed back there. This place was a part of Artemis, something he could see had shaped her, and as such, it was important to him to keep it in his memories.

He rang the doorbell, suddenly wishing he'd had the sense to bring flowers or something of the like—but instead all he had was a helmet—, and looked at his feet, trying to remember what he had figured out on the way he was gonna say when she opened the door. His mind was useless in performing this task, but it didn't matter anyway, because when he heard the creak of the door and looked up, all possible words got stuck somewhere between his larynx and his tongue.

"Hi... I... uh..." His mouth fell open as he took in the image of her.

She stood in the doorway, one hand on the handle, the other rested against the wall up high, jutting out a hip. Her entire face was an accessory to her show-stopping eyes—dark and dangerous, and daring, and so stunning his throat dried up. Artemis' thick, long hair that he'd so rarely seen out of her signature ponytail fell over her shoulders lightly, like a fog, or perhaps a misty waterfall, while the sides of her head seemed to be a gallery for intricate, exquisite pieces of artwork that happened to involve hair.

She was wearing some kind of red gown, but how or where it began and ended, he couldn't tell. Her figure was perfectly visible in the form-fitting top of the dress, the intense, saturated color contrasting sharply with her skin in the neckline that plunged downward from the corset-like top, and below her hips, the skirt transformed into a chaotic mass of bunches and gatherings, and a whole bunch of other things that reached down to her knees and made no sense to him, except that... well, she would have no trouble moving tonight.

Her legs were shrouded in some kind of black, lacey transparent tights or leggings—or whatever it was—concoction that he decided then and there should be illegal to preserve the sanity of anyone who came across a person wearing it, and her ankles were hidden in what looked like very...  _very_  skintight, high-heeled velvet boots.

And when his eyes came back up, no longer blinded by the red that was everywhere, he saw that her arms were enveloped in some cloud of sheer, still red, loose sleeves that were hanging from the lowest of the strange strap-like things that formed a web on her shoulders, slit right down the outside of the arm, only gathered together in two places above the elbow and falling freely from then on.

She raised her eyebrow and lifted one corner of her mouth, revealing that her lips glistened in the light. "Is that all you have to say?"

"I, uh, hmm." He cleared his throat and blinked for the first time since he'd seen her. "Wow." He stared at her, at a complete loss for words like an idiot. "I've never seen you in a dress before," he stammered out, kicking himself mentally for it right after his mouth closed.

She, however, only smiled and stepped aside, clearly pleased with the moronic response. "I will admit dresses are not my cup of tea for casual wear. Every once in a while, though..." she trailed off, following him with her eyes as he came inside, still unable to shift his gaze to anything but her, which resulted in him nearly knocking over a nearby potted plant as he tried to take his jacket off.

"Whoa, whoops, sorry." He looked back, startled by the sound. "You, uh... you just look amazing. But... you already know that."

She grinned. "I do. But a little jaw-dropping never hurts." Artemis winked, watching his face soften.

But then, as he held her stare, his expression transformed, bit by bit, until it was the most intense look in his eyes she'd ever seen. It was as if he was staring right through her and into her soul, piercing right through all the shields she'd worked so hard to keep in place. His expression was gentle and tender and being looked at like that, with clear, darkening eyes and unmistakable affection in them, made her feel surrounded in warmth... and more naked and vulnerable than she ever had before.

Calmly, Artemis stepped closer to him, as if in a trance, and laid her lips lightly on his, just barely brushing them. She then rested her forehead against his and smiled, staring back into his eyes, only half an inch away.

"You don't look too shabby yourself, you know," she said, palms on his shoulders, feeling the texture of his white button-down shirt and loving that he left the top few unbuttoned. It made him look so relaxed, so open... even more than usual. So  _trustworthy_. Like she could put her life—or worse, her heart—into his hands without a second thought.

"Come," she said. "Meet my mom." She took his hand and led the beaming, lanky guy in the tight, black jeans and fancy shoes into the living room, where Paula had been straining to overhear them. "Mom, this Wally. Wally West. Wally... this is my mom."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Crock." He nodded his head, sincerity in his voice. Artemis noticed how he didn't bat an eyelash at Paula being wheelchair-bound, though she'd never told him that, and the tug in her chest grew just a little tighter.

"It's very nice to meet you, too, Wally," Paula said. "Artemis has told me a lot about you."

"Not everything of it great, I presume." He flashed a quick grin, which, as always, disarmed whomever he was having a conversation with.

"Oh, by no means, no, but I do not know anyone who only has good things to say about their partner."

"That... kinda makes sense; yeah, I can see that. Thanks for the advice; me, I have no experience in these areas, so I'm just... makin' it up as I go along with your daughter here. Hope you don't mind."

"Any boy that makes her excited to go on a date is a friend of mine." Paula smiled at Artemis.

Wally looked back at the red-clad, stunning girl who was leaning against the wall with a daring expression. He nodded. "Yep, she seems excited. Yay, I have a new friend." He grinned as Artemis rolled her eyes.

"I've been worried for so long that because of their... unconventional upbringing, my daughters wouldn't experience a normal life. And Jade surely hasn't." She looked down at her fingers, twisting and untwisting with regret. "But I am very happy Artemis has finally sought it out; or at least part of it."

"Uh, you guys do know I'm right here, don't you?" She straightened and took Wally's arm, pulling him away. "Come, Baywatch. We have to go now."

"Uh, I'm glad to finally have met you, Mrs. Crock," Wally said over his shoulder.

"Call me Paula." She smiled. "And have fun."

"Yep." Artemis practically pushed Wally out into the hallway, where he snickered about her antics. "Shut up."

"Home by midnight!" came a voice from the living room.

"Yeah, mom!"

* * *

 

"So," Artemis started as she got off the back of Wally's motorcycle in a quiet and calm neighborhood, in front of several nondescript, one-story houses, "where are we?"

"This," he said, "is where dreams come true."

"Is that the corniest thing you could come up with?"

"Yes; yes it was." He smirked. "It's a little place Rob and I found a while back when we patrolled Gotham together and kinda crashed through the neighboring wall, trying to catch these four robbers— anyway, it kinda stuck with me 'cause I'd always wanted to come to a place like this, but I never had anyone to go with. See, I'm not much of a club guy," he explained. "But I like dancing. And I remembered that you mentioned you took classes as part of your training and, well... I thought it'd be fun to let loose. In a non-crowded, sensible environment, I mean. We've had each other's backs in battle more times than I can count, but I don't think I've ever actually seen you move for pleasure. You know?"

"I... do, actually," Artemis said, surprised despite herself. "Let's go, Lover Boy."

The establishment turned out to be a dimly lit, nice little Italian restaurant with a ballroom dance floor, actual vines snaking up the walls, and fairy lights posted to the ceiling, just slightly below a starry sky mural. The booths were all secluded from each other and Artemis couldn't tell how many people were actually there, but somehow solitude was in the air.

It would've been cliche if it weren't just right.

They settled into a cozy corner and, when the waiter came over, Wally, of course, ordered everything on the menu. After a brief deliberation, Artemis decided she'd try a little bit of it all and took only a soda for herself, sipping it as Wally tried to strike up small talk. Finally, after five minutes of nothings about school and life, he gave up.

"Shall we?" Wally asked, nodding toward the dance floor and the two couples who were already on it.

"I suppose there's no time like the present to find out what kind of match we are."

"Hey, if we can't dance together, we might as well just call it quits right now." He grinned, getting up and reaching out his hand to her as he bowed exaggeratedly. When she took it, he spun her around, landing her right in his hold—fingers intertwined and both of their other palms on each other's backs, heartbeats accelerating as they stared at each other with eyes that almost sparkled in the intentionally weak lighting.

She slowly lifted her leg, never breaking eye contact, and hooked around his knee, pulling him closer with anticipation in her smile. "Let's dance."


	10. BIRTHDAY: The Beehive

"So, what we gotta do now is..." Wally cocked his head, putting a finger to the deep wrinkles on his forehead. "Babe, you got anything?"

"No, and you're an idiot for buying it in the first place." Artemis' voice was stern.

"Hey, come on, I can figure this out. It can't be... that hard. Can it?"

"Wally, you've been standing in front of this pile of wood for two hours. I'm not wasting any more of my life watching you have a staring contest with something that never even had any eyes to begin with."

"Yeah, but no, just imagine how great it would look here, right beside the dining table. We could, like, put books and plates, and photos here—the  _photos_ , Artemis!  _Think_ _of_ _the_ _photos_ _!_ —, and then, when The Cave got attacked, these two cells here are the perfect size for head smashing, don't you think?" He pointed at the picture in his hand with with an excited grin. It depicted a fairly large, irregular beehive-like contraption with about thirty compartments, attachable to the wall.

"Yeah, and then the shelf will break, and you will devote  _more_  time of your life trying to put back together something that never had any business being together in the first place!"

"How  _dare_  you." His voice was mockingly shocked as he kneeled down to the collection of slim, wooden cuboids on the floor and hugged. "Shh, don't listen to Arty. She doesn't mean it. I love you guys."

"Wally! You don't even have an instruction manual!"

"And it is  _my_  fault for losing it and I take full responsibility for that. Don't take it out on the shelf." He pointed at her in warning.

She groaned. "You  _bought_  it... at a  _flea_ _market_ _!_  I'm pretty sure the thing never  _had_  any manual!"

"Well..." He struggled with the words and grimaced childishly. "It is beautiful and I'm keeping it."

"Fine. You're on your own. Call me in a hundred years. Maybe then you will have actually put two pieces together."

"You'll eat your words!" Wally warned, then jerkily snapped around when she started to leave.

"Uh-huh, I'll take my chances."

"Believe you me, I will put this glorious thing together and you're gonna want to store all your precious, uh, whatever it is that you hold dear, in it, and I'm not gonna let you, and you're gonna wish you'd helped me when you had the chance!" He called after her retreating form. "Non-believer!" he added for good measure.

Finally, he pursed his lips and sighed, turning back to the chaotic mess at his feet.

"Oh, what am I gonna do with you, beautiful."

* * *

"KF, catch!" a lively voice from the door yelled. Wally pivoted and caught the humongous peeled orange just as it was about to hit him in the chest.

"Uh, thanks, dude, but the fridge is, you know, right there."

"Imported from Bialya. I figured you'd been down here so long, you probably forgot all about food."

"Please; me? Never." Wally snorted, but appreciatively bit into the fruit just like that, not bothering to take it apart and causing juice to splatter everywhere.

"So, how's it coming?" Robin kneeled down next to the speedster and examined the structure that was forming on the floor.

"I've had to rearrange a couple bits several times and I'm pretty sure something will be left over when I'm done, but, as you can see, I'm almost finished putting it together."

"Yeah, uh... Wally, you sure you're not supposed to put it against the wall first?" Robin asked, running his finger down one of the cells, squinting when a tiny splinter almost got him through his glove.

Wally froze, thinking it over. "Um... yes?" he guessed. "I think. I'm sure it'll be fine. What's the worst it can do, fall off?"

"We never use the dining table, true," Robin allowed. "Not like it's gonna hurt anyone over here."

"Except wake Gar up if it breaks in the middle of the night."

"The kid's a dead sleeper; don't worry about him."

"Really? How do you know?"

"Zee told me; apparently he has a habit of sneaking into her room at night after M'gann has finished reading him bedtime stories. I remember this one time I called her after he was already asleep and she was whispering so low it sounded like a horror movie." He laughed. "But the kid slept through that Superboy's experiment with speakers a week ago—remember that? my ears are still ringing—, so obviously waking him up will be impossible when he eventually starts going to school; I don't envy M'gann." He frowned. "Or Zee. Or whomever ends up doing it. Man, can you imagine Tornado trying to wake him up? What a sight that would be." He sighed wishfully.

"Hey, help me get this up?" Wally asked as he put the finishing touches on the beehive that spanned close to ten square-yards.

"Sure. How are you gonna hold it up while you nail it? Dude, I'm strong, but I'm not that strong."

"Uhh... couple chairs?"

"Doubt you're gonna find some the exact height you want," Robin said, putting two fingers to his mouth and pursing his lips. "You might need Superboy. How high do you want it anyway?"

"Uh, no, Supey's not even here," Wally said, racing all over the lounge, examining the height of every stool, chair, box and pillow. "Didn't you notice? M'gann sent him away on some errand while she's busy getting The Cave ready for his surprise party."

"What? That's still two weeks away!"

"So she overdoes it." Wally grinned. "But I love it when we do parties. We should do more of those."

"Well, you'll get the chance soon, right?" Robin smirked and jabbed Wally lightly in the ribs just as he returned with two of their masterpiece chairs from the counter.

"Ow, what do you mean?" Wally rubbed his chest and adjusted the height of the stools, smiling at the unusual constructions. He and Rob should have been interior designers, really.

"Artemis' birthday," the younger boy replied as if it was obvious. The edge of the now-vertical beehive that Wally had just picked up fell on his foot.

"Her what now?"

"Birthday." Rob frowned. "March 27th. I thought it was cool that we had two birthdays so close together."

"How the hell do you know when her birthday is?" Wally slapped his hand against the wall.

The height to which Robin's eyebrow rose was almost reminiscent of the smarm brow. "I'm a  _detective_."

"Oh." Wally straightened and scratched his head, ears flushing just a tiny bit.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"I... ugh, look, I asked Artemis once when her birthday was and she changed the subject, okay?" Wally said, taking the beehive again.

Robin squinted at his best friend for a moment and then started guffawing. "So that was you jealous?"

"Shut up and lift this damn thing."

"Oh, man, you need to work on your intimidation stance, dude."

"Well, it's not like I was taking you seriously as threat; I wasn't really  _trying_ ," Wally said, trying to squirm out of the situation. "We're best pals; you have a girlfriend. Nothing to it. How's that going, by the way? You two are so rarely actually together I have to periodically remind myself you're a couple."

"We don't like to go around PDAing, unlike  _some_ _people_." Robin looked at Wally pointedly. "We prefer broom closets," he said with a smirk. "It's going... well, I think?" He lifted the other end of the beehive and they finally put it on the stools, with Wally immediately going at it with the hammer. "Okay, maybe not so much." The younger boy huffed out a breath and handed the redhead nails, one by one. "I don't know."

"What's wrong?"

"Honestly, I think we're just looking for different things. She's not really in a good place right now and I'm going through stuff with this new kid Batman's checking out, and, well, me refusing to open up about anything besides team stuff isn't really helping." He chuckled half-heartedly.

"Have you considered telling her your identity?"

Dick cast his eyes down. "Consider, yes. But I'm not gonna do it. Batman still doesn't know you know; can you imagine how large a fuse he'd blow if he found out I'd told  _two_  people?"

"Rob, if you honestly think Batman doesn't know I know, you're stupider than you look."

"Let's say I'm in denial." He grinned crookedly.

"So, where do you think it's going with Zatanna?" Wally asked, two nails between teeth, concentrating on not hitting his thumb.

"Ehh, time will tell. I'm young anyway, right? Plenty of time for girls later, no matter what happens."

"Just make sure the team doesn't fall apart."

"No, dude, no, there's no way we'd let that happen."

"Yeah, knowing you, you'd probably become best friends if you broke up."

"That may be going a little too far, but—"

"Do me a favor; don't throw out my friendship trophy when she replaces me, 'kay?" Wally snickered.

"Shut up and nail the damn thing."

* * *

"Hey, guys; bye, guys!" M'gann breezed through the lounge, streamers in tow, and waved as she disappeared into the other room to stuff them in places she could later make explode open.

"That's the fourth time she's done that in the last ten minutes," Wally said. "Should someone tell her it's not an Earth custom or...?"

"Neither is buying a piece of garbage and hanging it up like artwork," Artemis pointed out. "You don't see yourself listening, however."

"I do know several artists who would disagree with you, though," Zatanna mused, running her eyes over the new dining room decoration.

"Yeah, come on, babe; now that it's put together, you gotta admit it looks pretty great, dunnit?" Wally smiled at her, pleased with himself.

"I will admit I'm impressed you actually managed to assemble it," she said.

"YES! I told you!" He pressed his face against hers, flaunting it.

" _However_ ," she continued, rolling her eyes, "I still say it wasn't worth it."

"You will eat your words," he warned again. "With gravy! And cherries on top! And cream cheese!"

"And then vomit?" she asked without missing a beat.

"And then thank me for bringing about the greatest thing to ever happen to The Cave," he corrected.

"Wally, you'll have forgotten about this in a week."

"Greatest.  _Thing_."

"Nobody actually comes here!" Artemis pointed all around her, to the dining area that was so bare and with so little wearing out in its floor that the loneliest person in the world would pity it. "You do realize that!"

"That's why we gotta make this a shrine to our fabulous team spirit! And such. Look, I already dug out lotsa pictures we've taken—which, strangely, isn't that many and something we should really pay more attention to—, and just observe their magnificence on this mantel. This could be like our Wall of Fame. Nice, out of the way, but still important, you know?"

"It is good idea, for team bonding," Kaldur said. "Even more so when the new members come."

"New members? What new members? There's already eight of us," Artemis said.

"My friends Tula and Garth will be done with their studies soon and are curious about the surface world."

"Batman's got his eye on this kid he thinks could benefit from a 'team experience'." Robin scowled.

"We need to come to terms with the fact that one day it might not be just the eight of us. And Roy. This is is a good way to honor everyone." Kaldur smiled at Wally, who beamed back.

"Staaaarting with a group picture right here, on this momentous occasion that marks the beginning of a decades-maintained tradition!" Wally dashed to get a camera from beside the TV. "M'gann, you coming?" he called.

"Yes, I'm here!" Miss Martian flew in from the other room, grinning expectedly. "What are we doing?"

"Team bonding exercise," Wally answered, grabbing a handful of peanuts from the counter and stuffing them into his mouth. "...In the form of picture time."

M'gann frowned. "Shouldn't we wait for Superboy?"

"Oh, that's right; he's not here. When will he be back?"

"He already is," Robin said, looking at his entrance-monitoring glove computer.

"Perfect; I'll go get him," Wally said and dashed off.

"That boy needs to take a chill pill," Raquel announced. "If he gets  _this_  excited about  _this_  many things while he's  _this_  young, he's gonna have a loooong and boring last twenty or thirty years of his life."

"I think it's cute he's so lively," M'gann said. "We're in the superhero business; the way I see it, a little light in our lives is always welcome. Don't you think, Artemis?"

The archer crossed her arms. "Yeah, whatever."

"Oh, I think our lovely archer is a little disturbed by just how well her yin-yang dynamic with Wally works," Zatanna teased.

"Right; because this stupid beehive is the epitome of perfect dynamics." Artemis waved behind her in exasperation. "Ugh, he's so frustrating! I just— I wanna tape his mouth shut."

"You know, I can hear you on the other side of The Cave," Wally said, walking in with Conner right behind. M'gann quickly shapeshifted a concealing robe over the streamers she had forgotten she was holding. "And it's not like taping over my mouth would stop me from talking anyway."

The archer groaned. "I hate you."

"Naww, you love me," he corrected with a grin, then froze as the words registered in his brain. Her expression fell and Artemis stared at him, wide-eyed and unbreathing, fingers clenched in a tight fist. Robin and Zatanna exchanged a look, as did Kaldur and M'gann. Conner just kept walking over to the group, past where the redhead was stuck in a half-walking position, his arms awkwardly hanging out. It took all of five seconds—which felt like eternity—for Wally to compose himself and cough as slightly as was possible. "In a casual way, I mean. You know, like friends do. I mean, M'gann, hey, I love you, have I told you that lately? And Kaldur, old buddy, old pal, there is not enough love in the world. Zatanna, being awesome as usual! Rob—"

"Yeah, yeah, you love us all."

"Exactly. I love everyone I know, really." He tried to laugh, but only weak, strangled sounds would come out. "Now, uh, how about immortalizing this love that, uh, we all feel for each other and get this picture done, huh?"

"Can we get it over with? I need to change my clothes," Conner said and only now did everyone notice he was dripping wet.

"You can change out of your shirt right here, like you always do." Zatanna suggested and grinned when he actually obliged.

"Okay, so, uh, M'gann, would you do the honors with your telekinesis?" Wally asked.

"Sure thing. Saaaay cheese!" She levitated the camera halfway across the room and pressed the click, right before remembering. "Oh, wait, Gar!"

The resulting snapshot featured a smiling, but confused Zatanna and similar Robin, a surprised M'gann, a stoic-faced Kaldur, a Conner looking at M'gann in concern, a Raquel taken aback by the direction Conner was facing, and two freaked out teenagers standing several yards apart, trying their best to hide it, with a small, brown-haired head peeking into the frame with the back turned.

It would rest in the center cell of the beehive for years to come.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There's a couple things I wanted to say.
> 
> 1\. Thank you so much for the extremely kind reviews! I know I almost never answer them, mostly because I don't know how and also even if the people leaving them want me to, but I honestly cherish and fangirl over every single one of them and they just make my day and I hope you will continue leaving them. As long as you enjoy the story, that is.
> 
> 2\. I've figured out an approximate schedule for the rest of the fic. Now that we're 10 chapters in, we're no longer in the very beginning of the Spitfire relationship and the updates will get spread a little farther apart, chronologically. This takes place in early March (Superboy's "birthday" is March 21st, as you all probably know) and most of the future months will get about two chapters each, occasionally more, if the occasion demands it. This, for example, is part 1 of 3 chapters which, I guess, I could call the Birthday Arc, and they're all March, but most other months will have two. Every couple chapters there will be a concrete timestamp of sorts (a holiday, an event, etc.) and you can assume the rest are just spaced evenly out in between those milestones. I have a timeline I'm sticking to and I can post it, for example, at the end of each year, but not ahead of time.
> 
> 2.1. This fic is currently planned to have around 130-150 chapters in probably 250k+ words, released over the next year or so (maybe more, maybe less, depending on where life takes me, I guess) and there's a spin-off coming once Team Year One is done (which won't be for at least a month or two, probably), but that's a story for another day.
> 
> 3\. The team is actively going on missions; I cannot stress this enough. It's just that I don't know enough about the universe to write them realistically (or, let's be honest, the skills for action) and so they're always in the background. But they're THERE. I'm just writing the off-duty stuff.
> 
> 4\. Pretty soon some people are gonna be joining the team. I'm going by the list that Greg posted, which has the order everyone joined (although, sadly, not the actual dates), HOWEVER since I am not familiar with the main comics continuity, Troia and Lieutenant and Sergeant Marvel (I don't even know who those last two are; some relatives of Billy Batson? Or is that Billy himself?) won't be joining and Jason will be featured only peripherally because I do not know his character and personality AT ALL.
> 
> 5\. So yeah, I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoy writing it, and if you like it, I'd really appreciate a comment (particularly of the constructive criticism kind, though flattery is always nice) and/or telling about it to your friends! Honestly, I never imagined the story getting so popular or so well-received so quickly (well, by my standards :P) and now that I've gotten a taste, I kinda want more. :D
> 
> 6\. ALSO. The Beehive: you're welcome. I want one now.


	11. BIRTHDAY: One Year Older

"Is everything ready?" M'gann asked, fiddling with the assortment of party foods, making sure they were just right. Her newly long locks were very much getting in the way.

"Stop fussing; it's all great," Wally said, chewing on a piece of beef jerky. "You should be a party planner. As your day job, I mean."

"You would be great at wedding planning," Robin agreed.

"Uh-huh. Thanks, guys, but I'm still in school." She took the last batch of cookies from the oven. "And, to be honest, I've never asked any of the League Members whether they have actual civilian jobs."

"Batman does."

"Buddy, that's not a job;" Wally interjected. "That's, like, making appearances and shaking hands, and being a face."

"Dude, will you  _shut_ _up_ _!_ " Robin rushed to cover Wally's mouth with his hand.

"Oh, that's okay," M'gann said, switching to mental link.  _"_ _He_ _'_ _s_ _Bruce_ _Wayne_ _;_ _I_ _know_ _._ _And_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _Richard_ _Grayson_ _."_

" _I_ _,_ _uh_ _..."_  His eyes widened under the triangular sunglasses, for just for a moment, before the corners of his mouth tightened. He did his best to ignore the liquid ice running through his veins and the cool sweat on the back of his neck as his fist clenched where it was resting on his knee.  _"_ _Come_ _again_ _?"_

" _Robin_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _a_ _telepath_ _."_  She rolled her eyes; for a genius, he could be so naive sometimes.  _"_ _I_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _do_ _it_ _on_ _purpose_ _,_ _though_ _,"_  she quickly added.  _"_ _It_ _'_ _s_ _just_ _that_ _when_ _we_ _were_ _in_ _Bialya_ _I_ _forgot_ _how_ _secretive_ _you_ _are_ _about_ _that_ _and_ _I_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _realize_ _knowing_ _your_ _name w_ _as_ _a_ _big_ _deal_ _; to be honest,_ _I_ _was_ _more_ _focused_ _on_ _not_ _digging_ _out_ _anything_ _Artemis_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _want_ _me_ _to_ _find_ _._ _Sorry_ _."_  She smiled apologetically and held out the plate of fresh cookies as a peace offering.

Dick narrowed his eyes at the pile of chocolatey goodness for a good minute before sighing with a shake of his head and taking two.

"Don't tell anyone," he warned with Batman-like steel in his voice.

"I would never," she promised immediately; a little too quickly, perhaps.

"Not even Superboy," Robin emphasized.

"You think I tell him everything?" M'gann asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't know and it's none of my business; I'm just saying."

"Look, my lips are sealed. I don't really understand the secret identity thing, but if it's important to you, I will honor it. As friends do."

"Okay. Good," he muttered.

"Thes bonghing exchperhience ish great for yoo guysh 'nd all, but, uh... couldh yoo take yoor hhand back, pleashe?" Wally asked with a nearly closed mouth through Dick's iron hold on his face, looking back and forth between the two of them.

* * *

 

"I don't really see the need for watching  _Hello_ _Megan_ _!_  on the big TV," Conner said as M'gann pulled him by the elbow through the hallway. "We can watch it just fine in your room. Where nobody will bothe—"

"SURPRISE!" a chorus of people cheered at once as he came into view of the lounge, and the M'gann made streamer-hiding-places exploded all at once, making confetti rain all over the room. Wally instinctively crouched over the food.

Superboy stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the scene before him. Robin, Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Rocket, Zatanna and Aqualad were all here, as were Garfield, Black Canary, Red Tornado, Captain Marvel and... Superman? With an elderly couple he had never before seen in his life.

His heart did a backflip at seeing his father of sorts look at him with warmth in his expression.

"Happy birthday, Conner." M'gann hugged him and planted a big, loud, kiss on his cheek. A few seconds later he had somehow ended up with a conical hat on his head.

"Uh... it's not my birthday," he said, frowning. "I don't have one."

"Well, we decided that you should," she announced. "Today is the first anniversary of the day Project Kr was begun, which makes it the day you started existing. I think," she added.

"Shouldn't my birthday be the day I stopped growing?"

"Yeah, it is a bit like celebrating a conception date," Wally said and started snorting at the image of Lex Luthor and Superman trying to conceive.

" _Whichever_  way," M'gann continued, "you deserve a party. I thought it was about time. So happy first—or seventeenth, whatever you prefer—birthday, Superboy." She brushed his hair, then added in a lower voice. "I'm...  _very_  glad you exist."

Conner's face softened and the corners of his mouth slowly turned upwards in such a rare occurrence for him. His arm wound around her waist and he kissed her good and proper, right on the lips.

" _Thank_ _you_ _,_ _M_ _'_ _gann_ _,"_  he said via their mental link.  _"_ _I_ _..._ _don_ _'_ _t_ _know_ _what_ _to_ _say_ _about_ _all_ _this_ _."_

" _Say_ _you_ _'_ _ll_ _try_ _to_ _enjoy_ _it_ _."_

" _I_ _will_ _._ _I_ _love y_ _ou_ _,_ _M_ _'_ _gann_ _."_

She blushed, trying to suppress a grin, and cast her eyes away, to where the guests were turning to each other to mind their own business.

"So... is there gonna be cake or what?" Wally asked.

"Shh; they're having a moment," Zatanna whispered through gritted teeth.

"Yes," he whispered back, "but will there be cake?"

* * *

 

"Hi, hi, sorry I'm late! Patrolling with Green Arrow took longer than I thought." Artemis marched into the lounge and straight over to the party boy. "Happy birthday, Conner! Man, you're turning one, huh? I remember when I was that age... I was so— actually, no, I don't remember anything." She laughed. "But, hey, you get to remember your whole life!"

"Uh... thanks," Conner said, stirring his drink with his party hat and trying to get the courage to go talk to Superman. " But I don't feel any different."

"Ah, don't worry about that; nobody ever does." She put her elbow on his shoulder and snagged a drink of her own from the counter, watching Wally eat. "You spend six months trying to get used to calling yourself a different age and then by the time you're actually okay with it, you have another birthday; it's an endless cycle of frustration. Has anybody else gotten any of that?" She pointed toward the redhead, who was munching down on a three-tier chocolate cake with KitKats all over it. A small, amused smile graced her mouth at the thought that she was dating that goof of a boy. Life worked in funny ways.

Well, at least there were no unblown candles stuck in the cake.

"Not that I know of."

"Okay, then; I'm moving in," Artemis said, putting her drink down and patting him on the shoulder. As she made her way over to the couch to have a turf war with her boyfriend, if it was necessary, she ran across M'gann and took a step back back in shock. "Whoa, what happened to your hair?" It was dark brown, almost as long as Artemis', devoid of any bangs, and hung in soft waves over M'gann's shoulders.

"Oh, that's right; you weren't here. I decided I wanted a change." M'gann shrugged and smiled, smoothing it self-consciously. "Black Canary says being too much like Megan could be bad for me and Garfield says I look a little bit too much like his mom, so I thought I'd play around with a couple of things. How do you like it?" She twirled around, sending her curls flying all over.

"Looks great." Artemis ran her fingers through the auburn strands. "It has a habit of getting in the way, though," she warned.

"Yeah, I noticed that," M'gann said with pursed lips, almost pouting. "How do you deal with it?"

"Uh... lifelong practice, I guess." The blonde ran her palm over her loose mane, tucking some of it behind her ear.

"Oh! Superman's coming over." M'gann eyed the large figure approaching Conner, which he had yet to notice, and her brow creased with concern; the two Kryptonians had come a long way, but it was no means the end of the road and, well, their confrontations could get intense. "I'd better go make sure Superboy doesn't break something."

"Sure." Artemis spun around and blew out a breath. "Oh, and, M'gann?"

"Yes?"

"Great party," she said, holding up two thumbs. M'gann beamed and rushed over to the Superfamily which, as it turned out, included the elderly couple she had never before heard of.

"Hey, babe." Wally's voice came muffled from the couch. "When did you get here?"

"While you were eating," Artemis replied dryly, taking a seat next to him and watching Robin and Zatanna have a quiet—and, by the looks of it, hard—conversation on the corner couch. Her eyes were cast down and his fingers were tangled in his lap, twisting and untwisting. "Do you know what's going on there?"

Wally's head turned to his best friend, fork-holding hand frozen in mid-air between the plate on the coffee table and his mouth. "Not really, but I'm pretty sure they're breaking up." His lips collected in one corner of his mouth as he examined the couple.

"Yeah, I was afraid of that," Artemis muttered.

"Zee talked to you?"

"Yep. Can't say I'm surprised, I guess. Team romances can't go successful three for three, right?"

"Oh, so ours is working out?" He grinned.

Artemis smirked with a tongue in her cheek. "I meant you and the cake."

"Ouch!" His hand clapped his heart in mock horror. "Okay, fine, you want any?"

"Why, Wallace, are you offering me  _food_?" She batted her eyelashes, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed.

"Fuck you; offer rescinded." He turned back to his plate, nose in the air.

Her shoulders slumped. "Ugh, you're  _still_  on that stupid comic book?"

"Not a comic book; a webcomic." He stared her right in the eyes, the educator finger high and mighty, pointing at her. "That I'm addicted to. Just today I finished an act and learned the purpose of the game and OH MY GOD I can't wait to get home and read more." He threw his hands up to the ceiling in desperation, sending cake crumbs all over the room. Artemis groaned. "Can your phone handle flash?" he asked her with the utmost importance in his voice and drew back slightly when he caught himself. "Wait, how did you know that was a quote?  _Did_ _you_ _start_ _reading_ _it_ _without t_ _elling_ _me_ _?_  I thought you said you'd only do that when hell froze over. Which, by the way, I hear Icicle, Jr. is actively working on."

"No,  _doofus_ ; I knew because you never swear. At least you didn't before you started reading that monstrosity. How long's it been, a month? That should be enough, I think. Where do you even find the time between school, me and the hero gig?"

"Oh, Rob set up this sweet deal for me with holographic glasses; teachers think my sight has gone bad when I'm actually reading about time-travel paradoxes and angry space trolls, and cool guys." He grinned, clearly pleased with himself.

Artemis shook her head. "I can't wait for this to blow over; if I ever go to any of your school dances, remind me to punch that Johnny kid in the nuts for showing the thing to you."

"Hey, I don't criticize your telenovelas," he reminded her. "Anyway, I only have like 500 pages left; I'm sure it'll end pretty soon after that. My favorite things always do." His lip quivered, complete with puppy eyes, and Artemis couldn't help but snort. "Like those two. Remember when they met? Haven't seen Rob take to a girl that quickly, like, ever." He sighed and put his elbows on his knees, resting his head atop his hands.

Artemis shifted her gaze to where Boy Wonder and the magician were still sitting, but in much more relaxed positions now, talking animatedly and throwing out a smile or two every once in a while. Her palm brushed his shoulder. "They'll be fine, babe."

* * *

 

"Ahhhh, M'gann, have I mentioned I love you for doing this?" Wally captured the martian in a giant bear hug, looking over the lounge which had yet again been decorated with balloons and streamers, this time green and gold. Chocolate popcorn lay in three big bowls all over the room, a Cheshire cat clock hung on a wall, and the DVD was ready for The Wizard of Oz.

"You don't have monopoly on making Artemis happy, Wally," she said with a wink.

"I can see that, yes. You're the best anyway."

"When is the birthday girl showing up?" Red Arrow asked, sitting at the counter with an apathetic expression and running fingers through his hair. The dark circles under his eyes were only enhanced by his sunglasses.

"Soon, I hope. I'm gonna text her again." Wally took out his phone, excited to see her face when walks in. He had to periodically remind himself not to give away that he knew it was her special day.

"Do I really have to be here?" Red asked.

"Some normalcy will be good for you, Roy," Ollie said, coming over to the clone and putting a hand on his shoulder. He squirmed away and Oliver's arm dropped along with his expression.

"Ooh, she'll be here in, like, two minutes," Wally announced to the room. "Everybody take your positions; I'm gonna go meet her."

He was practically vibrating with excitement when Artemis stepped out of the zeta tube, bow in hand and confusion on her face.

"What's with you?" she asked as he hooked his arm around her elbow and started leisurely walking in the general direction of the lounge.

"Ohhhh, nothing; M'gann dug out a bunch of pictures to put into the beehive. It's starting to look nice and populated. Wanna see?"

"Uhm, sure?" She looked at him sideways, examining his grinning profile. "I can't stay long, though; I have, uh... a mountain of homework."

"Homework can wait," he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek as they entered the lounge and, once again, everybody was doing the 'happy birthday!' bit.

Only this time the person in question did not turn to him perplexed, or get excited, or mask the knowledge they'd had all along, or flail out of joy. Instead, her bow was upright immediately, pointed at the room.

When she realized who was in it, that they were all heroes, Artemis looked Wally in the eye with betrayal and moisture in hers, shaking her elbow from his hold.

"What have you done?" Her face turned to stone as surprise and concern overtook his and her hand shook when she pushed him away. "I can't believe—" She drew in a sharp breath. "Stay away from me."

Her quick, backwards steps, as if she were afraid to turn her back on him, clicked like bomb timer ticks in his mind and, before he regained the ability to speak, she was almost gone.

"Wh— Artemis, wait!" he called after her, racing at full speed to the zeta tubes, missing her by mere inches. But she was no longer there and the ache in his heart grew stronger by the second.

Shaken and defeated, feeling like his entire world had shattered in half a minute, Wally sunk ass-first down to the floor and put his head between his knees, vaguely aware that Zatanna and M'gann had come after him. He heard them breathing, but the Jupiter-sized lump in his throat prevented him from acknowledging it.

" _What_ _just_ _happened_ _?"_  M'gann asked.

" _I_ _have_ _absolutely_ _no_ _idea_ _,"_  Wally thought and the pain in his mind all but screamed that not knowing was killing him.


	12. BIRTHDAY: What's Done Is Done

Wally's steps echoed off the hard floor of the empty hall. His feet dragged, unwilling to take him back to the place his heart had received its first real slap. Plop... plop... plop... The fabric of his pants brushed the floor with every movement of his legs and in the cold, hard silence he'd swear he could hear the threads getting ripped apart, one by one. When his shoe untied, he relished the excuse to delay returning for just a few moments longer, taking his time crouching down. The long fingers moved sluggishly and clumsily, messing up the knot several times—whether on purpose or not, he couldn't tell.

The sigh that escaped him was so quiet he could barely feel it himself, yet the walls carried it so that it was likely to be heard in the deepest corners of the hollow mountain. He rubbed his face, ignoring when his fingers hit a painful pimple on his chin, and got back up, resumng reluctantly making his way back to the lounge.

Plop... plop... plop...

The room was dark, empty of anyone but him. The leaguers had already left some time ago and while some of the team members were probably still around, nobody was  _here_.

It was her birthday and nobody was there. Not even she herself.

Wally slumped into one of the backward chairs at the counter, resenting the way the lights automatically turned on, and grabbed a handful of chocolate popcorn out of the untouched nearby bowl. His eyes involuntarily scanned the room, unable to not notice the way the cheerful banner still hung, the TV was still on, turned to the Wizard of Oz DVD, the soda bottles stood opened, yet unpoured, and the balloons had all somehow been released from their ties to make strange patterns along the ceiling. The newly framed candid shots from Conner's party had found a home in the beehive and the camera used to make them hung abandoned from one of the other cells.

The room was mocking him.

"Dammit," he muttered, banging his head against the counter, and wished he could slurp down something that would turn back time.

But even then... what would he change? Wally still had no idea what he'd done wrong. Clearly, something had upset Artemis greatly. His chest constricted painfully at the memory of her eyes in that first moment of confusion—the glaze, the darkening, the tightening, the coldness... the shattering of trust. Her entire expression would haunt him for the rest of his life, of that he was sure.

She'd looked  _hurt_. So much more than he'd ever seen before. He had a feeling he could examine every single scar on her body and all the origin stories combined wouldn't be able to match the hurt in her eyes in that single moment.

He had rage in his entire being for anything that could make Artemis look like that, feel like that. It was unfair, it was unjust, it was undeserved. Yet, at the moment, the miserable boy was forced to admit that the burning anger he felt should probably be directed at himself. But what for?!

"M'gann!" he called out into the silent, crisp air, unable to take the solitude any longer.

She flew in slowly, looking down at the tiny, arrow-shaped confetti on the floor that Garfield had sprinkled around before the party started... or, rather, fell apart. She landed on the back of the couch, crossing her legs and resting her chin atop her hands.

"I don't know anything, Wally," was the first thing to come out of her mouth.

"How can that be? You're her best friend!"

"And you're her boyfriend," M'gann reminded him gently. "There's a lot we don't know about each other."

"Well, we should, like, have big get-togethers every day for a month and play nothing but Truth or Truth because this, the secrets and the not sharing, is  _really_  getting old. Need I remind you that our distrust directly helped The Light cause chaos all over the world? We can't afford that; not as a team... and not as friends." His voice broke slightly at the last word.

The silence lasted a long time after that.

"Go to her." M'gann got up and laid her hand on his. "Find out what's wrong. I'm sure there's a good reason." She bit her lip, thinking of the right words. "And once you know it, you'll be able to avoi—"

"It hurts, M'gann." He turned to her suddenly, fear in his eyes. "Her pain  _hurts_  me. You didn't see her face. It was—" Wally closed his eyes, summoning the image behind his eyelids yet so badly not wanting to see it. "It's like... her happiness is physically connected to mine and it's just—" His breathing quickened. "It'd be different if I intentionally wanted to be an ass and did something I knew was wrong. But I didn't mean to. And all I can see is her and I don't want her to go through these things because of me, and there's this molten ball of guilt somewhere between my stomach and my gag reflex, and I can't think, and I want it to stop, and I don't know where she is, and I don't know what to do, and I've never felt like this before." He grabbed his hair, and pulled on it, at a loss for any other course of action. His hands eventually ended up back on his face, one covering his mouth in lack of answers. He was looking at her with desperation in his eyes, and they seemed to be on the verge of tears. "How do you do this?"

M'gann squeezed his palm and looked around the lounge, her gaze landing on the beehive with an immortalized moment of one of the only times Conner had ever smiled. The corners of her mouth turned upward and small wrinkles appeared around her eyes.

"You get used to it," she said softly.

* * *

Artemis fired an arrow into the night, feeling a sense of pride when it exploded in the air and divided into a group of little smoke pellets which settled all around the perimeter she had chosen and then covered the entire street in a smelly fog.

Really, apprehending the burglar was child's play compared to some of the tests her father would assign. Her eyes narrowed as she thought of the time he'd congratulated her for breaking another kid's arm in elementary school because they said a mean thing. The fingers on her bow were tight as she remembered the first time he'd pitted her and her sister against each other in combat. The time she'd fought a security guard and nearly killed him.

The next arrow missed, just by an inch, but it was enough to make the accomplice that much harder to follow.

She  _was_  a hero, dammit. She had poured buckets of sweat and blood into leaving her family's legacy behind, and she  _belonged_  with the Justice League. Nobody could tell her otherwise. Not even herself.

Except, of course, on days like today, when the mere mention of a birthday party was enough for her to aim her bow at her mentor and nearly fire it.

What the hell had Wally been thinking? How could he possibly have tho—

"Oh, hey, there you are," said a voice behind her. She snapped around, bow ready for firing, to see Kid Flash immediately put up his arms a good ten paces away. His eyes were wide and intense.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked coldly, putting down her bow and putting her focus back on the target.

"I'm sorry," he said simply, eyebrows drawn together in a half-pleading expression, and then the words started spilling out. "I'm sorry; whatever I did, I'm so,  _so_  sorry. I didn't mean to. I... I guess I should have realized when you didn't tell me it was your birthday that it wasn't my place to butt in. I'm sorry that I upset you. I wasn't thinking; I just thought it'd be cool to throw my girlfriend a surprise bash." He smiled weakly.

Artemis turned her head back at him and evaluated his stance on the angled roof top. "How did you find me?"

"Robin said there was evidence of Gotham being patrolled and neither Bats nor GA were doing it, so I just hoped—" he cut off." It took me an hour to find you."

"Should've taken the hint."

Wally lowered his gaze and bit his tongue. "Look, I'm not gonna stand here and beg you to forgive me. But please,  _please_  feel better." He took a tentative step toward her, unflinching when she drew back. "I don't care if you wanna yell at me or punch me, or fire a hundred arrows at target practice, or whatever else you can think of, but, just, don't let me ruin your day. You deserve better."

Her snicker was absolutely devoid of any amusement. "Damn right, I do," she said, turning fully around and walking over to him, and jabbed a finger at his chest. "I deserve someone who knows that I have issues and understands that I don't like to talk about them. I deserve someone who is smart enough to know that no two people are alike and that just because  _you_  demanded a surprise party doesn't mean that I—" She took a breath, the lines of her mouth set tightly. "I deserve someone who won't go to Robin for a dry and impersonal computer file when you have  _me_  right in front of you."

"You do," he said, his stomach twisting and turning. He wouldn't take his gaze off her and neither would she, and so they stared at each other for several minutes, both unblinking as if playing chicken.

"Well, are you that someone?" she asked, pushing the finger harder against his rib.

His eyelids finally lowered and his swallow was louder than most. Or perhaps it was just the cold, quiet night air that enhanced the sound. "I want to be." His eyes were green and inviting, and so nakedly honest.

She drew back and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply to compose herself. "Okay, then. I just need to know one thing: did you really not know why I don't celebrate my birthdays?"

"I still don't," he admitted, reluctant to look at her for fear of what he might find there. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me; I promise I won't, you know..." he trailed off, watching her feet switch the weight around. "But..."

They stood there in silence, listening to sirens driving by in the distance and inhaling the night air that smelled of stale gas. Artemis examined the hard lines of Wally's mouth as still he looked away from her, the goggles carelessly drawn back on his head, the slight shaking of his fingers, half-hidden behind his back, the way his foot was moving almost imperceptibly against the floor. He was trying to be still—such a hard thing to do for the boy who was always moving—for  _her_. Not to spook her and to make her feel safe.

The Gordian knot in her chest loosened. No one had ever exhibited such care over her well-being. Her feelings were second to the mission at hand and then forgotten about because they never mattered; she was used to that. And, over the years, she had come to prefer it. Because she no longer really knew how to feel things. All she could do was get over whatever was preventing her from surviving, then move on until the next annoying and incomprehensible obstacle wormed its way into her mind.

But concern? That was new.

Artemis sighed despite herself and motioned her hand toward the robber who was getting away on foot with a tracker landed in the bag he'd ripped on his climb over the barbed wire fence; it was only a matter of time before it fell out. "Let's go catch some criminals and then we'll talk."

Wally's head snapped up, eyes running over her emotion-free face, unable to read it. She hesitated and took a step closer to him, pulling down his goggles with one swift move and lightly tapping him on the shoulder. "You'd better carry me, Baywatch; I'm not that fast."

His lips formed a slight smile and he scooped her up, ready to run down the side of the building.

* * *

"Look, I'm sorry I blew up on you," Artemis said, crossing her arms and leaning against the railing of the fire escape. "I—I may have overreacted a little bit."

"No, I should've asked you first. It's m—"

"Hey, I'm trying to apologize here." She rolled her eyes and pushed her knees up to her chest. "Why don't you shut up and let me."

"Right; shutting up." He zipped his lips closed and put his hands up yet again, sitting on the steps and brushing off the last remnants of winter mud off the slightly rusted steel next to him.

She played with the fingers between her knees and torso. "It wasn't fair of me to expect you to somehow guess everything about me when I barely ever tell you things. And it's a natural assumption that people like birthday parties. So, uh... it wasn't your fault, okay?"

"Okay," he said, though the pang in his heart remained. "But, just hypothetically speaking, how many sore spots do you have? Just so I know how cautious to be."

She chuckled quietly and licked her bottom lip. "Let's just say my entire childhood is a sore spot. But I'm gonna try to give you an idea of why that is."

"I'm listening."

"See, when I was growing up, along with Jade..." She stopped, evaluating the words running through her brain. "Our dad didn't really spend any time with us. At all. Mom tried to keep us kinda normal and I knew she loved us, but, as far as I remember, Dad was just... there." She waved into the night. "He didn't know how to be a father and, what's more, I don't think he ever wanted to be one in the first place. To this day I don't know whether Jade or I were accidents. And if not, whether he was in on the plan. I haven't had the courage to ask. But really, I barely knew him."

Wally listened intently, his eyes fixed upon her profile. He didn't say anything, waiting for her to continue as his followed her example and tangled and untangled his fingers in his lap.

"And then, as we slowly grew up, he realized he didn't necessarily  _have_  to be a father to spend time with his children; he could just be a... 'mentor'." She snorted humorlessly. "Mom set her foot down at teaching kids to play with swords, but he still started working on Jade when she was ten. My turn came less than two years later. I still remember how on my eighth birthday he pulled me aside from the party Mom threw for my friends and gave me my first knife. It, uh... It was beautiful, actually." She smiled with ice in her eyes. "As knives go, it was top notch. Nothing but the best for his little girl. Well, villain in the making. I just would've preferred a football. And then," she continued, "when I turned ten and it was just him and me, 'cause Jade had already ran away, he deemed me old enough for my first 'mission'. We robbed a Star Labs facility and I broke my leg. When I turned eleven, he took me face to face to fight with a superhero. Someone I now admire. And when I turned thirteen, he drove me to the woods two hundred miles outside Gotham and abandoned me in pajamas with nothing but my bow—no arrows, by the way—and a mask with a lock and no holes over my eyes. Then last year—" She inhaled sharply and looked up at the dark sky, gathering her strength, moisture welling in her eyes. Wally laid a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look him in the eye and gave a half-laugh as the first tear spilled over, running hands all over her face. "When I turned fifteen, my father locked me in a room with one of Cadmus' failed clones, who was so mindless and out of control—" She grabbed her hair and brushed it back as far as it would go. "The only way to survive was to kill her." She stared into the distance, pushing any and all emotions down.  _'_ _What_ _'_ _s_ _done_ _is_ _done_ _'_ , that's what everyone always said. No use spending any more time dwelling on it.

Wally swallowed and wordlessly climbed down the two steps to sit next to her, wrapping his arms so hard around her the pressure alone was enough to make her shiver with sudden heat. He pressed his lips to the side of her forehead and, when she laid her head on his shoulder in response, the momentary jump of his heart made him feel as if someone had just screamed at them from hidden bushes.

Artemis snorted a little again, able to look at her past with cynical humor after trying so long. "I guess you could say birthdays are a rite of passage in my family. Anyway, when I saw the—the thing, it looked like one of Dad's annual tests. Villain debuts. What am I old enough for now, Dad?" she called into the night. "Kinda brought on some bad memories and drilled in instincts. I thought I was supposed to fight my teammates." She snuggled deeper into his shoulder.

He groaned. "God, I feel like even more of an ass now. I'm  _sooooorry_." He squeezed his eyes shut and held her as close as he could. "But thank you for telling me." His voice was low and gentle as he whispered the words into her ear.

They sat like that through endless traffic light changes and hundreds of people passing by below them. She was running through all her memories, surprised that they didn't hurt quite so bad while she was in the speedster's arms, and occasionally rubbed against him in the chilly early spring air. It felt like hours later when she finally spoke.

"So, uh... what do you think about the mess that is my life? Did I scare you off yet?" She grinned wryly.

"You mean the mess your life  _used_  to be," he pointed out and smiled sheepishly when she drew back to look him in the eye, perplexed. "Last time I was over, your mom said you were kinda happy," he admitted. "It sucks that I ruined that tonight, but, um, isn't your life, like, heaps better than it was a year ago? Who's to say it can't get even better, you know? And scars fade over time. It could be that the worst time of your life is behind you and the rest will be smooth sailing, and when you're eighty you'll look back on your preteen years and be like 'hahahaha wow I barely remember what that was like'. Or," he continued, "you know, maybe I'm just an idiot who can't stop himself from rambling. Your pick."

"That sounds nice, actually. The first option, I mean," she added. "But you didn't answer my question."

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "And what I think about the mess that was your life is I'm never throwing you any kind of party again."

She laughed— _really_  laughed, with a genuine smile and everything—for the first time that evening. "I wouldn't go so far as to say 'never'; like you said, scars heal over time. Just tell me first, okay?" She looked at him and brushed his hair out of his eyes. It was really getting shaggy.

"Done, babe," he said and kissed her softly. "I'm glad you're better. Very glad. So, uh, should I go now and leave you to think things over, or...?"

She pursed her lips and gave him a once-over. "Actually, if you want... I was gonna spend this birthday with my mom for the first time since she got out of prison. Make some new memories. There's still two hours left; you could come in and join us."

His chest gave another tug, this time a pleasant one, as his eyes softened. "I'd be honored."

"Then follow me," she said and got up, climbing back into the apartment that, despite everything, was her home, and left the redheaded boy staring after her and wondering whether he could maybe, possibly, conceivably...

Be in love.


	13. None of the Mean Stuff

"Knock, knock," Artemis said, standing in the half-open doorway, looking cautiously over the messy room. Two boys immediately snapped around with hands behind their backs and grins too enthusiastic for her comfort. "All right, what did you two do?"

"Nothing; we didn't do anything; why would you assume we did anything?" Billy said, attempting to chuckle and smirk, but only nervous coughs would come out of his childlike throat. "We were just, uh..." His eyes traveled over the room. "Gar was showing me DVDs of his mom's show."

"Uh huh, and which episode did you watch?" Artemis raised her eyebrow, having seen the entire thing months ago.

"The one where she... has a big misunderstanding?" He grinned hopefully.

She snorted and went into the room to look behind the busted boys on Garfield's bed. Her brow furrowed as she scratched her scalp. "...Are those whoopie cushions?"

"They're balloons," Gar said in one last attempt to get out of trouble. "To make my room fun."

"Wh— _ohhhh_." She nodded in sudden understanding. "Tomorrow's April Fools', right?"

"Kinda," both boys replied simultaneously, sheepish. "We were gonna prank Wally."

"Well, guys, come on, a whoopie cushion's not gonna do it!" Artemis immediately looked around the room, thinking actively as the boys exchanged confused looks. "You gotta be more creative, tailor something specifically for him; like, um... Really spicy hot sauce on his nachos. Pink lenses on his goggles. Skates under his boots. Put make-up on him and hide his freckles. Ooh,  _ooh_ _!_ " She slapped her thigh in excitement. "Hide all the food in the cave."

Billy crossed his arms. "Uh, Artemis, aren't you his girlfriend?"

"Yeah," she said, putting a hand to her mouth as she yawned. "What's your point?"

"Why are you trying to prank him?" Garfield asked, narrowing his eyes.

Artemis looked back and forth between the two boys and chuckled. "Oh, guys, if you honestly think he's not gonna try to prank me, you're delusional." She pursed her lips, glad to have a whole night to plan retaliation. "And don't be surprised if tomorrow the whole team ends up on a mission to rescue a cat from a tree or something."

"He can do that?"

"Robin sure can." She shrugged. "So you'd better come up with something good; I won't tell if you won't." She winked and walked out the door, leaving Billy and Garfield staring at each other with speculative looks, convinced their mission was of utmost importance.

"I like her," Gar announced.

* * *

**24** **HOURS** **LATER**

* * *

"Well," Batman said, overlooking the ten kids with whipped cream and blood-resembling jelly in their hair who stood frozen in various uncomfortable positions around the room—M'gann levitating near the bookcase, Robin standing on the dinner table, Zatanna half-crouched over the counter, Artemis seeking cover behind the couch—and were staring at him with unmistakable 'whoops we got caught' on their faces. "I think this mountain's had its last April Fools' day." The eyes behind his mask examined the various broken dishes, torn pillows and messages on walls written in mustard. The purple glitter on the floor was crunchy beneath his boots and the ceiling fan blew tiny bits of feathers at him.

Batman made eye contact with every youngster in the room, who straightened up one by one, and, wearing an unchangingly unamused expression, pursed his lips, and chased the feathers away with one swift, hard breath. His cape billowed behind him as he walked away without saying another word.

The teenagers and Billy and Gar looked at each other for a moment, evaluating the situation, before simultaneously resuming their foodfight, all at once.

Conner and Kaldur were caught in an exchange of fresh cucumber peels and water while Zatanna was changing Garfield's outfit to every conceivable color, more to amuse him than actually fight. Rocket was reloading her orange-juice-loaded squirt gun in front of the fridge, glancing back at Robin, who was standing in front of the beehive, ready for her. With a utility belt stocked with throwing chips.

Wally raced to Artemis side and ran a circle around her before stopping with his back half-pressed against hers. "Team up?" he offered.

"After you replaced my arrows with flaming batons?" She snorted. "Fat chance, buddy," she said and twirled around, bow held high an inch from his chest with a smirk on her face.

"Me? What about you?" he asked, offended. "Getting M'gann to shapeshift into best friends is not a perfect move either, you know."

"Uh, no, that was all the boys over there," she corrected with a nod toward Billy. "And, just in case you're wondering, they won't tell me what they found out." Her bow cocked. "Boom." She fired and the arrow encased Wally in a cloud of sticky confetti, which clung not only to him, but every surface in a several yard radius, including her. Zatanna, who was standing near, yelped at the sudden burst of liquid behind her, but immediately cleansed herself with a spell.

He wiped the stickiness out of his hair with a scowl. "Was that really necessary?"

"What, did you expect me not to use my bow when you sneaked in these brilliant, customized arrows?" She batted her eyelashes innocently. "I'm just trying them out to see how in the world you managed to fit in all that in this one tiny little tip." Her lips tightened as she tried to keep herself from laughing at the sugary substance trickling down his face.

"Oh, you wanna be funny, huh?" Wally grinned, flinging the nearby confetti mass at her, enjoying her uncharacteristic squeals. She held her palms up to shield herself, but it was no use and so her entire front ended up sticky and wet and the already semi-dry parts from earlier were cracking with every move of her limbs, clinging to her as a faulty second skin. All around them were sounds of chaos as Kaldur and Conner had declared war on M'gann and Garfield, using what must have been melted butter and cream cheese, judging by the shades of yellow flying past them.

" _Dammit_ , Wally!" She lunged at him with a disbelieving laugh and landed on his waist, pinning his arms to his sides so that he wouldn't bombard her anymore. He stumbled a little backwards, chin jutted out as he stared her down, but, once he felt the wall in the way of his boots, he turned around and pressed her against the wall, securing her legs around his waist and kissing her deeply.

She tasted like cherries and sugar and, surprisingly, chocolate. Her mouth had traces of at least five different ingredients on it and some of them had already attached themselves almost permanently to the sensitive skin of her lips. He ran his tongue over them, melting the sweet substances and lapping them up, savoring the rich bouquet of tastes and smells. Her arms wound around his neck and she pushed herself up, higher, searching for more. He, in turn, tasted of salt and tomato powder. His hands pulled back her mask and then pressed against her abdomen as he turned his head to lay quick kisses on his cheek and then moved to nibble on her ear.

Her breathing was getting heavy and her legs tightened even more around him, pressing their cores as close together as was possible. He let out a muffled grunt and traveled down her half-exposed neck, stopping on the pulse above her collarbone and sucking on it through the material of her uniform. Her eyes snapped open and her chest heaved, her fingers grabbing the back of his hair. Her gaze finally put the room into focus and, though the noise around them hadn't betrayed her ears and the battle was still going strong—Zatanna against Kaldur now and with Garfield trying to catch every bit of food flying around in the middle of the kitchen—they hadn't indicated that Billy was taking a break from fighting and staring at Wally and Artemis, together in a... rather compromising position.

With a gasp, she realized Wally was on the verge of undressing her with his bare teeth in this very crowded room and that his hands were resting fairly intimately on her lower back. Well, lower than that.

"Dude," she said between strangled breaths, "the door is right next to us. Why don't we," she said, struggling to think clearly when his tongue pressed against the crevice at the bottom of her neck, "take advantage of that."

"Whatever you say babe," he murmured against her skin and, returning his lips to hers, stepped away from the vertical surface, taking small, slightly unsteady steps as she stuck her fingers out with closed eyes to the walls in case they should fall, their mouths never leaving each other. He made his way to the hall and immediately did a U-turn, pressing her against the other side of the same wall as before and went at her with new fervor brought on by the illusion of privacy.

She was so hot and so sweet and enticing, and all he wanted to do was kiss her forever. His heart was pretending to be a drummer at a live concert and his eyelids seemed to be permanently glued shut with the confetti liquid, and his legs were almost trembling with his need for her.

Once again, his mouth traveled lower, past her chest and down the center of her torso, settling on the taut flesh beneath her navel. His hands gripped her bottom, holding it up higher as he leaned low to press his lips all over the strong, lean muscles of her abs and taste the sugar and remnants of lemon juice there. Her head, now much higher than his, drew back as the tiniest whimper escaped her throat. Oh, she wished he'd never stop.

But eventually—much, much later than that, when the war cries in the lounge had quieted down and cleanup had started—his mouth traveled back up and her legs slid down his waist and back to the floor. It was turn for her palms to grab  _his_  ass and her mouth to try its best to explore his body through the very, very covering material.

She hadn't gotten further than his upper neck when a certain robot came walking down the hall and stopped abruptly to look at the tightly entangled teenagers.

"What are you doing?" Red Tornado asked, cocking his head slightly to the side. Wally and Artemis broke apart, both with swollen patches of pink around the general area of their mouths and clear trails of where the various remnants of food on their bodies had been kissed away to leave only glistening skin.

"Team building exercise," Wally said, flashing a grin.

"Do you think me stupid, Kid Flash?"

"No," Artemis said quickly, "just... inexperienced in the matters of human hormones. It's really very complex and confusing, and it would just be an unnecessary clutter in your brain.  _Right_ , Wally?" She bumped her shoulder lightly against him.

"Um, uh, yeah; very, very boring," he said, sniffing sharply and pursing his lips. "Yep."

"I see the rest of the team are cleaning the mess you all made together. I suggest joining them would be a more productive 'building exercise'." He didn't exactly put his hands up and do the air quotes, but they were very clear in his voice.

Wally cleared his throat and regretfully let go of Artemis. "Sure, boss."

She licked her lip and, with a slight straightening of her shirt, followed Tornado back into the lounge, where Billy was back to eyeing them suspiciously.

They could've just sneaked back in, she thought. Nobody had probably even noticed either of them was gone in the chaos. But, of course, now that Red drew attention to them with his demands of updates on progress and light scolding, everybody's eyes were on them; most of them amused and knowing.

Oh, what the hell, it wasn't like anyone in the room was unaware she and Wally made out every time they got the chance. So she took his hand and led him to a corner of the room where they could clean up together. It would've been easy with M'gann's telekinetic abilities, Wally's superspeed, Zatanna's spells and Kaldur's ability to control anything that had water in it, but, sadly, Batman had said no powers.

The old-fashioned way—what a drag it was.

"Hey, uh, for what it's worth," Artemis said, crouching over the glitter, "this is now my new favorite April Fool's."

"Yeah?" Wally smiled. "You had any other good ones?"

"Ohh, a couple here and there." She grinned slyly. "But none this..." Her eyes roamed over the room, over her family in every sense of the word but blood. "Close."

"I gotta admit, it was a nice break from people stealing underwear and writing obscenities on lockers at school," Wally said, taking a pile of popcorn lying on the floor and stuffing his mouth. "You know, just simple, lighthearted fun. None of the mean stuff."

"You sure Zee charming every mirror to show Conner his toddler face doesn't count as mean?" Artemis asked, chuckling.

"I'm sure the guy has been curious for at least a moment what he would've looked like as a child." Wally shrugged and yawned. "But, you know what's weird? I can't remember who threw the first pie. You?"

"No, me neither. I just remember Kaldur calling us all here to say that  _everybody_  pulling pranks on  _everybody_  was just a little too much and then... it just sorta happened." She grimaced in confusion.

"What do you wanna bet it was actually a leaguer who started the whole thing?" Wally waggled his eyebrows.

Artemis winced. "Oh, great; now I can't see anything else but Batman holding Cheetos and firing them from a nerf gun."

"Not a pretty picture, is it?"

"No, and not a realistic one either." Artemis smoothed her hair—standing up in stiff tufts, with the curls Zatanna had put on her as she'd entered the cave almost gone—and looked around the room, where everyone was cheerfully chatting, gathering in groups of two and three. Even Garfield was openly laughing and still playing with M'gann. "But whoever it was, this was a good idea."

"It was," Wally agreed with a smile and brushed the back of her hand lightly. "No way we're not celebrating in a year."

"Oh, not a chance." Artemis smirked and kissed him one more time.

Standing in the doorway, half-hidden behind a wall, Dinah looked on silently at the result of her handiwork and smiled, satisfied.


	14. 24 HOURS: The Fight

"Babe," Wally said, breezing into the training center where Artemis was administering a high kick to the punching bag that wouldn't die no matter what the team did to it; she suspected it was made of alien material. "What're you doing? They just arrived."

"'M not coming," Artemis muttered, doing a flip and elbowing the bag. Her hair was damp with sweat, a few locks on the verge of escaping from her ponytail, and her old, loose T-shirt was sporting a few new rips that hadn't been there that morning. "I'll meet them later."

"Why?" Wally leaned against the dummy that looked eerily like Lex Luthor—making it the second most-punched thing in the room, right behind the immortal bag—and gave his girlfriend a once-over with crossed arms.

Artemis glared at the bag in silence and went at it with everything she had, punching and kicking, and growling, and, finally, scraping her nails down it like her sister always used to when they were kids, and Wally had to cover his ears to keep himself from passing out.

"The heck is that thing made of?!" He ran over and examined the leather-like fabric which, despite the terrifying sound, had not teared at Artemis' nails.

"Don't know, don't care;  _die_ _,_ _you_ _stupid_ _thing_ _,_ _DIE_." She snarled.

"Okay, seriously; what's the matter with you, Artemis?" Wally asked, turning to her with concern in his eyes. "All week you've been talking about finally meeting the infamous Tula and now you don't even—"

"I'm a little distracted," she snapped and turned away to pick up her crossbow and fire twenty arrows at the target on the other side of the room, all straight into the heart, without breaking a sweat.

Wally's eyebrows drew up at the veins pulsing in her forehead and her squinted gaze, the set lines of her mouth. "Um, is this one of those times I need to back off and leave? 'Cause you just say the word and..."

She glanced at him furtively and her mouth twitched as if she wanted to say something. The crossbow was lowered and, with a sigh, she closed her eyes, putting a finger to her temple. "No." She rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, I just... I had a shitty day." Her mouth thinned and, almost faster than he could see, she had swiveled back around again and fired another ten arrows right between the eyes of the target with another glare.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side."

The corners of her lips turned upward darkly, her eyes staring into the empty distance with the vastness and frost of outer space. "You couldn't. Not like this." Her eyes returned to his, and the lack of color there sent a chill through his bones.

"Dad?" He guessed, making a conscious effort to think of him as a person and a father, rather than the supervillain he was accustomed to fighting.

Her fingers brushed back the, short, wet, frizzy strands of hair from her face and the plastic of the water bottle she picked up cracked loudly in her tight grasp. "I was out patrolling. Saw him. We fought. He got away. Then an hour later he just shows up on our doorstep, asking what's for dinner and explaining  _all_  the ways I could have beaten him with better technique." Lex Luthor dummy made a whiny sound as her unoccupied fist connected with its face.

Wally pursed his lips, staring at the very physically frustrated girl in front of him. It didn't take long to figure out the next words. "We've got a mission. Pure firefight for once; no stakeouts," he offered. "Tula and Garth are tagging along. You comin'?"

Artemis slowly lowered the water bottle, biting the side of her lip with one of her incisors to keep from breaking out into a grin. He saw right through her charade, though, and she could feel it, so, without another word, she walked past him, still leaning against the dummy, then gave in, turned back and planted a kiss on his cheek from behind.

And walked out of the hall with a certain swagger in her stride. He turned his head to look after her and, with a crooked smile, admired the slight bouncing of her thick ponytail, the way her head was held high, and, well, her toned backside.

Without warning, she turned back once more, now a good twenty feet away, and put her hand on her hip. "Are you waiting for an invitation?"

"I'm wondering how much time we have before Kaldur tells everyone to gather." His gaze had an unmistakable intent to it.

"Well, you only had to say so," Artemis replied, taking a step back toward the training center.

" _Team_ _,_ _convene_ _at_ _the_ _mission r_ _oom_ _."_

"Aaand that answers that." Wally straightened with a groan.

"Later," Artemis promised.

* * *

"Oh, hi." Tula's eyes shifted to the newly suited up archer who had just entered the mission room.

"Right back at you." She grinned. "I'm Artemis. You must be Aquagirl. And... Tempest?" She examined the boy standing next to her.

"Yes." Garth smiled. "Kaldur's told us a lot about you. All of you," he added. "We're both looking forward to being on this team."

"It's great to have you here," Kaldur said, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder, exchanging heartfelt grins. It was only when the boy turned away, back to Artemis and the approaching Garfield, who was tugging on M'gann's cape, that the Atlantean allowed an equally genuine shadow and uncertainty creep into his eyes.

The only one who noticed was M'gann, who promptly set up a private link with Kaldur, and Conner, who noticed everything she noticed. He may not have been privy to his teammate's broken heart the way the martian was, but he could tell when a private conversation was taking place.

"H-how are you adjusting to the surface life?" he asked, squeezing his girlfriend's hand. The newbies looked at each other, considering.

"It's very... bright," Tula said, wincing a little. "Atlantis is colorful and often saturated, but not quite so in-your-face with the light. You remember, right?"

"Yes." Conner frowned of the short amount of time he and M'gann had spent in the underwater kingdom months ago, which hadn't exactly turned out to be the peaceful tourist visit they'd anticipated when Kaldur had asked them to come along. "How are things politically?"

The pair tensed and Tula glanced swiftly at Kaldur, who was distracted by his mental conversation with M'gann. "The conflict is no longer violent, and hasn't been since we defeated Ocean Master. But..." She looked down.

"The fact remains that he had a large following, many of whom still harbor their unhealthy prejudices," Garth continued. "And the ones who disagree still hold a grudge. Rightly so," he quickly added, putting up his palms defensively, "but they, too, sometimes go overboard."

"The kingdom is not at peace," Tula concluded. "But it's not at war, either." She sighed. "It's actually one of the reasons we decided to finally come here and see what the surface world was like. The atmosphere at the academy was getting a little too tense for comfort and healthy learning."

"So, what are your powers?" Gar finally burst, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. Over the past two weeks he had interrogated each team member rigorously about their origin story, the drawbacks of being a hero, the benefits, and the circumstances of their getting the superpowers. Ever since a small, barely quarter-square-inch patch of skin had turned green right at the crevice of his elbow, the little guy had been asking anyone who would listen whether he could possibly be getting superpowers of his own.

Nobody had the heart to tell him it was probably just a minor side-effect from his blood transfusion. Not when there was finally light back in his eyes and his giggles no longer occurred weeks apart.

Tula opened her mouth to explain, but at that precise moment Batman walked back into the room and glared at the teenagers. "You're still here?"

Kaldur straightened up, a bit more easy after the conversation with M'gann. "We were just leaving."

"The Shadows won't wait forever."

* * *

"This," Wally squeezed out, panting, "is," he said, blocking blow after blow and running around in circles around Tuppence, " _usually_  when we start praying to the magical powers of the superteam." His voice was squeaky as Tommy's fist connected with his jaw, knocking out the suitcase out from the speedster's hand.

"Superteam?" Tula asked, trapped in an ice vs. water duel with Killer Frost.

"Yeah." Wally snaked out of Tommy's hold around his chest and ran across the roof to find something to slingshot himself at the Twins with. The suitcase lay abandoned in a shallow puddle next to Tuppence's feet as she cracked her knuckles. Wally looked around, his eyes running over the entire team somehow being faced with an equal amount of villains to fight, and the odds weren't looking good. "One of us says," he continued, running at Icicle, Jr. and signaling Conner to switch places, "that we really have got to stop trying to take these guys down individually and start working as a team. And then everything magically works out and bad guys lose. Right, babe?"

"Little busy, KF." Artemis dodged an attack from the Riddler and used the technique of kicks and flips she'd exercised against her father earlier in the evening, this time flawlessly, and took her opponent down. "Thank you,  _Dad_ ," she muttered, taking back the Riddler's suitcase and looking around to see how everyone else was doing.

"Still can't believe you joined the hero gig," Cameron said, going full freeze on Kid Flash, but stealing glances at the blonde in a green costume.

"Sorry I didn't tell you," Artemis said, rolling her eyes, throwing the suitcase up above to where Kaldur was manning the Bioship. M'gann realized what she was doing and, pausing her own fight with Devastation for less than two seconds, ensured the case would reach the Bioship before falling down. "But you know how it is—you grow up, you realize being a criminal's not all it was cracked up to be, and you try to punch some sense into your friends who aren't as smart as you." She threw a cheeky wink his way before running to help Superboy and get the second of the four cases.

"Wait, you two know each other?" Wally said, twisting Icicle's arm while he was pulling on the redhead's hair.

"Sure do." Cameron grinned. "Almost got together a couple of times, too, but then our dads had a falling ou—Ow!" he rubbed his head, which had just been landing ground for a dodgeball that happened to be lying around on the roof's playground.

"We're in the middle of a battle, you doofus!" Artemis yelled, sending another ball his way, and then an arrow, which almost emptied her quiver. When she deemed he'd had enough and Wally could take him, she couldn't resist adding: "And that is  _so_  not what happened, and you know it."

Unfortunately, her distraction by her childhood friend's words resulted in Tommy sneaking up to her from behind, having left Superboy to his sister, and grabbing her in a tight grip. Her legs flailed above the floor as she tried to loosen his hold on her neck, and, when that didn't work, drew in a sharp breath and triggered her last arrow's attacks.

The large man was covered in an orange, puffy substance and his arms let go of her for just a second in surprise, but that was all she needed. Her feet fell to the floor, using it as a springboard for a back side kick straight to his chest, sending Tommy stumbling backward and, ultimately, falling.

What she hadn't expected, though, was his normal-looking vest being unusually springy, perhaps acting as bubble-wrap for something he was carrying on him. Her foot bounced off his ribcage and she lost her balance when she landed back on solid ground, staggering away from the man, struggling to remain upright and shift her center forward.

A step, another step away... Try as she might, she couldn't steady herself, until her ankle collided with an elevated brick border, there was nowhere left to go, and the girl fell over the edge of a twenty-story building.

" _ARTEMIS_ _!_ " The three screams echoed in the night as cold dread filled her veins and the night sky turned black, because she had no more arrows left. Nothing to save her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) If you frequent Tumblr, you may have noticed that I took a little break from writing in order to reacquaint myself with the YJ universe and churn out better material for you all. I have rewatched the entire show, read all of the comics for the first time, and I'll be tackling all of Ask Greg over the next two months or so. I have also liveblogged all these things under the tags "Crazy rewatches YJ" and "Crazy liveblogs YJC", if any of you are interested.
> 
> 2) I have done what I wanted to do in this hiatus, I have new clarity over the universe, my show calendar has like five shows a week for the next month and a half (which, if you have followed me for any semblance of time, you'll know is very, very little for little ol' Crazy here), I know where I want this fic to go, my timeline has grown fourfold and I am PUMPED. So updates should be regular from now on.
> 
> 3) Unfortunately, I still won't be including Troia, Sergeant Marvel or Lieutenant Marvel, nor will Jason get a big part in the fic. The one thing I'm against with this thing is borrowing from DC in general, because that will open up a personal can of worms that I might end up spending the rest of my life trying to close back up. YJ is its own canon for me and, if a character has not appeared in that canon, then, well, tough luck. Speaking of which, I have a very tenuous grasp on Tula and Garth, so they might not figure prominently either. Unfortunately, the same applies to Raquel. I love the girl and rewatching the show made me realize just how badly I wish she'd have been introduced sooner and featured more in season 2, but, alas, what happened, happened and, although I would love to write her extensively, the simple fact remains I do not know what makes her tick.
> 
> 4) I realize that most of this fic will probably become invalid after Legacy comes out, but, if you'll stick with me nonetheless, I hope I can make the wait a little more bearable.
> 
> 5) Remember when I said this fic wouldn't adhere to the tie-in comics canon until I said otherwise? Well, I'm now saying otherwise. From now on, I will stick to it as much as I can. Speaking of which, I am officially acknowledging things I forgot or got wrong: Wally knowing the original Speedy, Wally not telling people Flash was his uncle (although, seeing as how Artemis wasn't present at the time, you could make the argument that it never came up again?), Garfield and M'gann's relationship between Image and his mom's death, the fact that Artemis never visited Paula in prison and as such could not ask her to braid her hair, and Dick's general demeanor on April 1st (such a sad day).
> 
> 6) This chapter is part 1 of another arc that will span four or five updates, maybe, which will hopefully be rolled out during the course of the week. Apologies for the short length and slight lack of quality, but I can promise you the next few updates will knock your socks off (well, by my standards).
> 
> I *think* that's all I wanted to say, but I'm not sure.


	15. 24 HOURS: The Fall

Artemis' foot missed the top step on the stairs.

She clutched onto the railing for dear life with both hands, clinging to it so hard her knuckles paled, and froze into a half-crouched position, wary of ever moving again for fear of slipping. A second passed, then another, and finally she was forced to let out a shaky sigh to make sure her lungs were working properly and she was still able to utilize oxygen for its intended purpose. One of her palms slowly let go of the wooden lace—which, truthfully, wasn't as steady as a railing  _should_  be anyway—and settled on her left breast, feeling her heart calm from its overdrive, the poor thing.

She could've sworn it had just stopped when...

Her chest jumped at the memory and her breath hitched. Her eyes closed on their own accord and the hand on her chest fisted in her shirt, mirroring the instinctive action it had taken hours earlier, when the fingers attached to it had been fumbling around the quiver on her back because surely, without a doubt, there  _must_  have been a stray arrow in there somewhere, hidden from sight in the heat of the battle.

_The air was knocked out of her as Artemis' back sliced through the crisp, cool spring air on her way down. She was falling so fast the oxygen didn't have time to gather back around her, or perhaps she could not inhale with enough force to suck it in at the same rate she was testing gravity and then some. All she knew was that on top of the ice that seemed to weigh down on her arms and the rush of heat pooling in her feet—the most elevated part of her—,and the sweat that had drenched her suit as soon as she felt herself lose footing and made the cold wind opposing her fall that much more uncomfortable... she was also suffocating._

_Well, as much as one could run out of resources necessary for survival when they were about to meet certain death in any case._

_Her vision was black and her eyes stung despite facing upward, and she had no idea what to do. The fall dragged on forever, yet her thoughts failed at matching the pace; they couldn't keep up. Every strand of idea evaporated into the air above her as soon as it was conceived and the only thing left on her mind were the people she loved. Mom, Jade, the team..._

_Wally._

A small collection of saltwater gathered above her lower eyelids and she blinked them away without a thought. Artemis drew in shallow breaths and lifted her legs, still holding onto the railing and making sure this time she wouldn't lose her balance. Each unsteady step took several seconds and, when she finally arrived at the old, brown door to her apartment, she slumped against the wall, grateful for something tangible to lean on.

Her heart was still hammering against her ribs, the sheer strength of the blood being pumped through her veins clouding her eyesight and making everything blurry, so she sunk down to the floor and wrapped her arms closely around her knees. For one minute, just one minute, she'd allow herself to freak out and hyperventilate, and cry, or whatever her body decided to do when she lost control.

Sixty seconds only. Because then she had to go inside and she couldn't let her mother see her like this. She had to be strong. For her.

The archer's forehead rested on her bony kneecaps and silent tears streamed down her cheeks, into her lap.

_Wally._

_Oh, was so much that she still wanted to say, that she wanted to do. Things she wanted to know, things she wanted to tell him. To feel his hands running over her and to explore him with her own fingertips. She wanted—no,_  needed _—to know what him sighing her name in contentment sounded like. To know how many shades of red and orange she could find on his body. To count his freckles. To let him play with her hair. To stay up all night talking about nothing in particular. To see his wounds and scars and show him hers. To_ know _him. To_  be _with him._

 _Why, oh,_  why _had they been so stupid? Why had they waited so long?_

_They weren't like regular people. They couldn't afford to spend months and months slowly getting to know each other and messing around, thinking maybe it might kinda sorta lead somewhere. They were superheroes; every second was time borrowed from the clock of fate._

_They trusted each other with their life. What more could you want? They should've used that trust to dive headfirst into this thing._

_But now her clock had reached midnight and dipping the tips of her toes would be the only thing she ever knew of Wally. She wouldn't get to do any of the things she desired. And he— He would never know that she had..._

_Fallen in love with him._

_Because she, the dumb-dumb-head, had been too immersed in things that didn't matter, that had no meaning in the big picture, to admit it to herself._

_Regret washed over her in strong, forceful waves, enveloping her entire being. How could it only have taken 2.3 seconds to realize that now when she had been so boneheaded for months? How was it fair?_

_Somewhere on the ground she heard a scream pierce through the night. She could only look up, but even if she were facing down, it wouldn't have mattered. Artemis still couldn't see anything. Not with her eyes, anyway._

_So. Second number three. She was just about to collide with the pavement. The lighting-fast realization made her almost apathetic. Her mind tried one last time to come up with a way to avoid the collision, but it was still futile to think of anything but Wallace Rudolph West. Pointless._

_Visions of red and yellow filled her very soul and she could hear that very unique way that he breathed in her ears—like sandpaper, but gentle. It had become her favorite sound as she had heard more and more ways he utilized his sighs and gasps, and moans, and everything he ever did with his mouth over the last few months._

_If she had to be a goner, she was glad that the last thing her mind hallucinated was that sound._

_Only... it was getting louder and louder, and becoming uncomfortably close. As if it were real._

The minute was almost up, but Artemis couldn't bring herself to open her eyes or get up. She stayed curled up on the old tiles that she'd played human checkers on with Jade a long time ago, and let herself drag her hands through the windblown mess on her head that some would call hair. Another minute. Just a little more, she begged herself.

But she heard the creak on the other side of the wall. That unmistakable roll of tires against a wooden floor. The familiar thumping as Paula tried to get in just the right position to get close enough to the door and see through the special peep-hole at her eye-level.

Artemis squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her lips, and for another three seconds, she let everything she couldn't allow herself to feel run through her. The fear, the uncertainty, the terror, the regret... the misery.

And then she took a deep breath, clenched her hand into a fist, propped herself up against the wall, wiped all evidence of crying away from her mask, and, just as she heard the tires rolling away, opened the door.

At the click of the handle, Paula's wheelchair immediately whipped around and she stared, wide-eyed, at her daughter, running her eyes over every conceivable surface of her body.

"Artemis! Artemis, are you all right?"

Artemis forced out a small smile and closed the door behind her quietly. "Fine, mom."

"I saw— I've been so worried!"

Artemis frowned and shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. "Why? I was just out on a missio—" Realization dawned. "Wait, did Batman  _call_ _you_?" She crossed her arms, protecting her heart that was rapidly speeding up again.

"He did not have to," Paula said, putting a hand to her temple. "I saw it on the news, Artemis. The entire thing! Are you  _absolutely_  sure you are okay?" Her fingers clenched around the armrest.

Artemis looked away, to where the shelf above the coat rack carried her first bow. "Fine. Mom."

_Her pulse came alive for what she was sure was the first time since she'd tripped, and her sight cleared up of the black spots, just in time for her to feel something solid smash into her from below._

_Well. She gulped, terrified. But then nothing happened._

_That was it?_

_It didn't_  feel _like the end. No blackness, no white light, no relieving of pain; none of the cliches she'd read about in so many books. She only felt herself being lifted up into the sky._

_Psh. This dying thing was vastly overrated._

_"I got you, babe," the sandpaper voice in her ear said and, with a start, Artemis realized that she was not being lifted, but was in the middle of a jump. That she had not smashed into anything, but the strong, lean, calloused arms currently wrapped tight around her back and waist had come to her. That the cold had given way to endless amounts of warmth and sunshine that hugged her wherever her skin was exposed. That she was moving upward at a speed which practically forced the very absent air into her lungs yet was slow enough to not damage her in the process._

_"W— Wally?" her voice was small and creaked, her chest going into hyperventilation mode and eyes blinking rigorously now that her bodily functions were no longer frozen._

_"Shh. Hold on tight," the voice in her ear said right before he landed on the glassy wall of the opposite building and used inertia to continue traveling upward. Artemis wound her arms around the speedster's neck and pressed her thumb against his neck, where a vein was popping at rhythmic intervals._

_She just needed to feel him._

_Wally ran up the side of the building, slowly speeding up, but careful to not jostle her too much, and started turning right in a wide circle. He thanked the lucky stars that this building happened to be quite large—unlike many others in the vicinity—for otherwise he'd have no space to maneuver and both of them would be as good as dead._

_He did a U-turn and, inhaling deeply, with fierce determination in his eyes, embarked on the journey back down, now a hundred and fifty feet below them on the completely vertical plane._ Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip, _he chanted to himself. Everything around him blurred, everything but the reflective glass in front of him and the green fabric that kept him going and focused when it felt like his legs would give out and any minute now he'd fall headfirst off the wall._

_He successfully made it to twenty feet above the pavement and, just when he began to worry about how he'd transition between dimensions at this speed without breaking both of them in half, almost twenty seconds had passed since Artemis' tumble, and he felt both of them being lifted up into the air by an unseen force._

"Thanks, M'gann," _he thought as he was being telekinetically lowered onto the ground._

"Just make sure she's okay," _M'gann thought._ "I've still got my hands full here."

_Wally set her down slowly and immediately took her into a giant bear hug. She could feel his heartbeat thundering in his chest and small, shallow breaths accompany it, and her own body responded. Her arms wrapped closely around him and she buried her head in the crook of his neck, and she pressed into him as hard as she could, and she inhaled the scent of his hair and skin as deeply as was possible and, when that wasn't enough, she moved her palms all over his face and drew back to see him._

_Somewhere in the distance, a familiar voice narrated. "...as such, it would appear Kid Flash is still active after almost a year of appearing by his mentor's side less and less." Cat Grant relayed the events to her camera. "You've just seen him, live, save a person's life. Details are unclear at this point and it is unknown whether it was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire we were covering earlier or— Hold on, I think I see a superhero costume! Could this be a new sidekick joining the ranks of the all but gone Kid Flash, Robin, Aqualad and Speedy? It would seem they know each other by the way they— oh, uh, ahem, I— Back to you, Gordon." Her voice lost some of its composure at seeing the two superheroes press desperate kisses to each other's face wherever their lips could reach._

_"Are you okay?" Wally asked between the kisses, examining her intensely. "I didn't... hurt you, when I jumped?"_

_"No, I'm fine." Artemis smiled, still slightly in shock, and let out a hysterical laugh. "Thank you." Her voice was thick._

_Wally grinned shakily. "Hey, what would I do without my favorite person to bicker with, right?"_

_"Whither." She brushed his hair back from his face. Her thoughts came back to her and everything she'd realized during those two seconds came rushing over her, flooding her entire being with so many emotions that she had no idea what to do with herself. The words formed themselves on her lips... but she couldn't make a sound come out._

_Her smile falling, she realized that even after all that, something was holding her back._

_"Listen, I gotta go back and help out with the suitcases," Wally said, still caressing her face with her fingers, unwilling to let go of the proof that she was real, that she was tangible. "Can I... leave you?"_

_She squeezed his hand on her cheek. "Yeah, I'll be okay. Just... be careful. Please. I don't think I'd be able to save you right now." She grinned weakly._

_"Promise." He planted one last quick, passionate kiss on her lips and dashed off, leaving Artemis to collapse in the middle of the street on her trembling feet, struggling to calm all her vitals._

"What happened?" Paula demanded.

"I... got careless," Artemis admitted. "Cam was there and we kinda got into a— It's not a big deal, mom. Just another mission."

"Just another  _mission_ _?_ " Paula shouted. "Artemis, do you realize what could have happened?"

"Yes." Artemis' voice was curt. "I do. But it didn't. So just drop it."

"I will not. I  _won_ _'_ _t_  lose my other daughter, too." Her fist hit the armrest. "You were  _this_  close to repeating my fate. Or  _worse_." Tears welled up in her eyes. "I cannot condone this. I withdraw my permission, Artemis. You cannot be a hero anymore."

Artemis stopped dead in her tracks, stunned by her mother's assertiveness and feeling the cold dread run though her again. She inhaled slowly in an effort to not look like a zombie.

"Mom," she said calmly, projecting a false sense of being collected. "You're in shock. You're not thinking straight. We'll talk in the morning, okay?"

"No; I've made up my mind. I've been debating this for months and this is just the last straw. I will not have you following in my footsteps. I couldn't stop Jade, but I can stop you. You have all these opportunities that I never had and you're gambling with them every day... and for what? Artemis, you have so much potential to better your life! Why can't you take it? You don't  _have_  to live in mortal danger every day!"

Artemis closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. When she opened them, her stare was cold. "I know I don't. But I love it. I'm good at it. I've found some semblance of happiness in this life. I have a  _family_ , something I was sorely lacking. You wouldn't understand."

"Artemis...!"

"I know you didn't have a choice, mom. And I don't blame you for any of the things you did. But I  _do_  have a choice. It's because of you that I do and I thank you for that." She looked down at her fisted hands. "But you have to understand that this is not a whim, or a hobby, or a deal I wish I could get out of. I'm not choosing to be a  _criminal_. I'm choosing to help people. And that's worth it."

"No, it is not," Paula said. "Do you know how many times I've relived that day? Wishing I could do it over? I kept thinking if I just worked a little longer, a little harder, we could suppot our family for enough time to become normal. But something was always in the way. I stalled, thinking 'what's the worst that could happen?' And what did it get me? Losing the use of my legs was one of the hardest things that I have ever gone through. I will not let you make the same mistakes I did."

"That's the difference, mom. You did it because you had to. I do it because I want to. And there's nothing you can say or do that will keep me from being a hero, not even if you revoke your permission for me to be a part of the team. I'd be sad about that, and angry, but I wouldn't put my bow down and become a quiet little schoolgirl." Her stare was piercing. "I will not quit. And the sooner you accept that, the better for everyone."

"I can't." The sadness in Paula's eyes was heartbreaking. "And I will do whatever I need to in order to convince you. Lawrence included."

Artemis' gaze turned to steel immediately. "Right. The man you left to raise me. Who made it so that the only way I feel alive is to be in peril. Who ensured that combat comes as automatically as breathing to both your daughters. Whom  _you_  put in charge when you took the fall for both of you." Her words cut Paula like a chef's knife. "And now you think you can come back and fix what he broke, just like that? This is who I am, mom." Heat creeped up her spine. "I can't be anyone else. This is my life, and I won't change the first good thing that's happened to me since my mother abandoned me to a life that doesn't count as one." The archer's fingers tightened around her bow and her voice was sharp. "You wanna convince me to quit? Yeah, good luck with that."

She turned around and walked out, jumping down the stairs with legs that were suddenly sure, steady and confident. Artemis ran out the building and several blocks in a randomly chosen direction. The streets were dimly lit, the empty candy wrappers and half-smashed soda cans barely visible unless a car drove by, and somewhere a stray cat meowed. The neon signs hung brightly, but crookedly, and a few pedestrians gave her costume a weird look. After running for ten minutes straight and having no clue where she had ended up, she stopped to lean against a lamppost and catch her breath, and, well, find something to punch.

But maybe that wasn't the answer this time, she realized with a humorless chuckle. Maybe it was time she learned how to solve her problems with words and feelings, and not shoving an arrow at someone's chest.

With a sigh, Artemis took out her back-up cell phone—the one that was allowed to be crushed during missions—from the pouch around her thigh. Her thumb hovered over a small button with a green phone on it. She stared at it, and the name on the screen, for several minutes before biting her lip and starting the call.

It rang for a solid ninety seconds before he finally picked up. "Hello?" He waited for an answer, but none came for much longer than was normal. "Uh... who are you and why are you calling me at one in the morning?" The voice on the other end was annoyed, but not sleepy, thankfully.

"It's me," Artemis said finally, dragging her fingers through her locks. "And it's actually past two here in Gotham, but..." She inhaled slowly. "Can I come over? I—" She closed her eyes, wishing she could summon the courage of Achilles. "I need you, Wally."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you know, I'm actually kinda proud of this chapter? I'm very curious to see what you guys think, so if it left any kind of impression on you, let me know?
> 
> This chapter and the one before it (and the next few as well) take place roughly a month after April Fool's, FYI. This is actually only half of what the chapter was originally supposed to contain, but it was getting really long, so I figured I'd split it in two. Let's call this collection of five (??) or so chapters the... 24 Hours arc. I'd been looking forward to writing it for weeks and now I finally get to and last night was a tremendous amount of... not fun, exactly, but feels, I guess? Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
> 
> Also, the story has passed 10k views on FF.net (I... have no idea whether that's a lot or not 'cause views is the one thing doesn't display for stories other than yours), it's garnered 85 reviews, 69 follows, has almost reached 100 pages on Google Docs (though their fonts are considerably larger than in other writing software) and is on the verge of reaching 40k words by GDocs estimate. So, milestones everywhere.
> 
> Anyway, um, yes. Enjoy and drop by if you do so!


	16. 24 HOURS: The Front

Artemis walked down the street unhurriedly—looking at the orange lights all around, kicking a stray can here and there, listening to the quiet. She so rarely got to hear what it sounded like. For as long as she could remember, she had always been lulled to sleep by a combination of blue and pink lights, a cash machine erupting in the casino across the street, some glass breaking outside one of the half dozen bars in the area, the bright, cheery sign of the gas station half a block down, and a few sirens that had lost their way. And inside the apartment, her parents had always exchanged words in elevated tones—or whispered harshly in the rare occasion they remembered that two little girls were sleeping in the other room—and come home late, their weapons making a clatter that rang through the thin walls. And Jade, before she ran away, had never been one to keep quiet for very long.

Not that she was particularly silent nowadays either.

But such had been the only environment Artemis knew. Sound was chaos. Chaos was comfort. Familiar. And adjusting to the gigantic cave and the way it carried sound—far and clear—had been one of the biggest hurdles for her. No muffled crowds, no unintelligible muttering, no sea of faces and voices to get lost in. Everything had become so sharp and focused since she'd joined the team. Even if she was part of a group that now included a whopping...  _ten_  people now, she had felt herself clearly as an individual for the first time. She'd made mistakes and she'd made good calls, and they had all been hers to make. Hers to answer for.

Maybe, eventually, she'd get used to the silence. Maybe someday it would stop being eerie. She'd like that. But, for now, Artemis stuffed her fists in her pockets, shoulders squared, and hummed something picked out of her brain at random, to have something to listen to other than the wind and the rising song of the grasshoppers.

She was on the corner of the sidewalk across the street from Wally's house by the time she realized she had sung the theme song of  _Hello_ _Megan_ _!_  five and a half times. She chuckled and made a mental note to ask M'gann for a physical copy of the song. So that she could stomp on it.

" _Distractable_ _,"_  she thought. It wasn't even a word.

She wished her problems could be solved as easily as Megan's, though. She had become quite a fan of the show in recent months. It was light and cheery and, yes, cheesy, but a lot of fun. She needed a little fun in her life. She'd even caught herself yearning for that simple, uncomplicated life once or twice. Just for a moment.

And, truthfully, sometimes—when she and M'gann would watch five episodes in a row while the martian was braiding Artemis' hair or showing off her shape-shifting skills in the form of outrageous, intricate patterns in nail decor—it felt like she had entered that sitcom world and, for twenty-two minutes, she was just a girl. Living her life.

A gull's sudden cry in the distance and the way her entire body jerked at the sound, pulse competing for the Olympic medal in dribbling, reminded Artemis that she wasn't at a sleepover now and it was time to face the music. She walked up the steps to the front porch of the West house—a journey she'd made more than a few times since entering a relationship with Wally—and put her hands to her forehead in an attempt to compose herself. When her heartbeat only barely slowed, she kneeled down into a little ball, willing the images of the black night sky to disappear from her mind, touching the wooden panels beneath her feet to remind herself she was planted firmly on the ground.

He saw her like that—head down, clutching onto the planet, hair messed up and uniform torn—when he looked out the window from where he was reading in the living room, waiting for her. Wally tried to swallow the lump in his throat, wondering whether he should go outside or wait for her to knock herself (as it seemed to be significant that she was breaking down right outside the door), but, before he could devote much thought to the dilemma, he saw her rub her face, take a deep breath, and put her palms on her knees, gradually pushing herself upright.

Just looking at the action felt exhausting.

The doorbell rang, and he stole one last glance of her outside, lightly rubbing her upper arms in the cool spring air and biting her lip just a little bit. Her expression was weary and her fists clenched every few seconds, and, at the last moment, she remembered to wipe her eyes one last time, just in case there was anything left. He put his book down and, pinching the bridge of his nose, made his way to the door. Wally ended up glad he'd looked at her because the image he saw when he opened it was entirely different.

Artemis was standing straight in front of him with a cheery smile and a carefree brush of her golden hair behind her ear. Her hand was on her hip and her eyes were no less wide than was usual, and her entire posture screamed normalcy. She appeared to have pinched her cheeks to get some color on them, because he could've sworn there was no blush there just a few seconds ago.

She looked so very, very fine and his heart ached at the sight. He could barely keep himself from pulling her into a giant hug and telling her that it would be okay, that she didn't have to pretend for him, that they'd make it through this, that it was okay to freak. But there must have been a reason she wasn't letting him see  _her_. The thought brought a sting to his eyes, and his jaw tightened, but he understood.

They had time. Hopefully. And he would wait forever if he needed to.

She, however, misinterpreted the change in his expression, and attributed it to something entirely different. "I'm fine," she said, reaching her hand out to squeeze his reassuringly. He didn't say anything, just kept staring at her, now, in addition to being worried about her emotional well-being, also reminded of the absolute terror he'd felt earlier that evening. Those three seconds had perhaps  _felt_  like an eternity to her, but he had  _actually_  experienced them over a much longer time than that. "Can I come in?" she asked.

Wally cleared his throat. "Yeah, of course. My, uh..." He struggled to hold on to his train of thought as he stepped aside and scratched his head. "My parents are out of town, so you, er— you don't have to worry about waking them."

"Good to know," she muttered, stepping in, but keeping her back to him. They stood in silence as Artemis examined the room absentmindedly, Wally lifting his hand and lowering it multiple times when she couldn't see, unsure of how to proceed.

She closed her eyes with a tiny sigh. What was she even doing here? What would talking accomplish? She didn't even have anything to say.

Crocks were not talkers. They were punchers. They did not seek help. They abhorred it. And the fact she'd even felt the urge to reach out to her boyfriend was ridiculous.

She needed to be alone. Work through this mess by herself. She wasn't made for this kind of thing and it sure as hell wasn't okay to dump her problems on Wally. So she snapped around. "Forget it; I shouldn't have come," she stammered out quickly. "It's been a long day; we both need to get some sleep." She marched over to the door.

"Artemis." His hand extended over the empty doorway and she halted, looking up at him. Her chest constricted when she saw the expression on his face, the most pleading and pained she'd ever seen. " _Talk_  to me."

She looked away with a small shake of her head, trying to control her face, which was threatening to erupt into sobs. "I can't. I—I don't know how to."

He finally laid a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to return her gaze to him, albeit a little unwillingly. "Okay. Then don't talk. Just— Look, you said on the phone that you and your mom got into a fight. I'm guessing you don't wanna go back there right now."

"No," she admitted quietly.

"So crash here. I can... I dunno, make you a cup of hot cocoa or something." He flashed a small, lopsided grin. "And we can not talk. Or whatever."

Artemis had to clench her teeth to stop herself from exploding right then and there. Her hand made a fist because it wanted to reach out to him, go into his arms, and cry.

But she couldn't. With moisture clouding her eyes, she had to face the fact that that wall inside her was still up and she couldn't find a way around it. And it hurt because... he was so amazing and so caring, and she was just standing there, holding back, and causing him pain—she could feel it. He had done everything in his power to help her open up and yet here she was, closed off as ever, unable to even tell him how she really felt.

She didn't deserve him. And it wasn't fair to Wally.

Dammit. Why did she have to fall in love with someone who treated her well and should receive more than she could give?

"Babe?" he said, examining the struggle in her expression when she didn't say anything.

The first tear spilled over. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"For what?" he asked, angling his head to see her better. She turned to face him.

"Everything." Her facade crumbled and she started shaking, lip quivering. "How messed up I am. How hard you have to work to get a simple...  _childhood_ _memory_  out of me." She snorted humorlessly. "That I'm never there for you. About dragging you into my problems. It's not— You shouldn't have to deal with that."

"All right; first of all, I'm insulted that you feel the need to apologize for that." Wally raised his eyebrow. "Does that mean when I have serious stuff to deal with—which,  _by_ _the_ _way_ , thankfully hasn't been the case since we started this thing and  _might_  be the reason you haven't had to help me with it —I'm not gonna be able to come talk to  _you_  about it? It's not a crime to lean on someone, Artemis." His eyes stared right into her, serious. "And I'm  _honored_  that you chose me for that."

She blinked the excess water out of her eyes and sniffed, her heart thawing. "See, there you go being great again."

"Which brings me to my second point," Wally continued. "Stop treating me like this completely normal kid who just somehow got mixed up in the hero gig. And remember that everybody's baggage is different and they're not comparable, but  _everyone_  has some.  _So_  I have two parents. Does that really make me better than you somehow?"

Artemis averted her eyes, considering that. She knew everything he was saying was true, theoretically, but with the way the team didn't exactly share their every secret, it was sometimes easy to forget. Catching herself, she looked at him questioningly.

He rolled his eyes with a small laugh. "Fine, if it will make you see this relationship as more of a partnership, I'll share my deep, dark pain with you. But can we please move out of the doorway? Sooner or later a moth's gonna fly in and you will have to deal with that."

She chuckled slightly and wiped her cheek with the heel of her palm. "Sure." Her smile wasn't radiant and it sure as hell wasn't wide, but it was genuine. "I'll stay over, Wally."

His face brightened and he closed the door, wrapping an arm over her shoulders. "Good. First thing's first—we need to get you out of that uniform."

Artemis turned to him with an amused expression.

"Oh, come on." He all but groaned. "You can't  _possibly_  tell me you feel comfortable in that thing after everything it's been through."

"Fine, you're right," Artemis admitted with a pout. "I guess I should've changed before I stormed out of home."

"Well, that ship has sailed. And since you'll be sleeping here anyway, might as well change now, right?" He patted her arm. "Hold on, I'm gonna find you something to wear." Wally disappeared upstairs, leaving a trail of purple and blue in his wake for a fraction of a second. Before she drew in her next breath, he was back, holding a large, white-and-red jersey and a pair of sweatpants.

"I figured you wouldn't want to wear my mom's stuff and, to be honest, I don't really want to search through it anyway, so, uh, this is my old track team shirt and, well, sweatpants fit everyone, right?" He grinned.

Artemis held up the shirt, frowning. "You run as number thirteen?"

"Obviously my most traumatic life event."

She ran her tongue over her teeth. "Okay, it'll do." Then the strangest expression crossed her face, paired with a timidness in her eyes he'd never seen there before.

"The bathroom's right over th—" He cut off as Artemis undressed right there in the middle of the living room, simply turning her back to him. Taken aback, he got a little flustered—especially when the bra came off and her back was left completely bare—, but he soon understood the gesture for what it was meant to be. A display of trust and vulnerability.

She was quite literally showing him her scars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fiddled a little with the chapter titles. From now on, every arc will be caps locked into the title. I also split this chapter in half. AGAIN. What was gonna be one simple, small update, has turned into 8k words over three chapters. -_- Oh well. This 24 HOURS arc will span two more updates. The first of which will be put up on Monday. Also this "two chapters per month" thing is so not working, but I'm choosing to believe that's only because this is the first year and they will get spread further apart further into the timeskip. Shh, let me live in my little fantasy world.


	17. 24 HOURS: The Fear

There were many, too; way more than he had. Probably less than Robin possessed, but he had never examined his best friend the way he knew Artemis expected him to now. In addition to the many healed cuts whose whitened cells shimmered slightly in the glow of the overhead light, there was a bandage on her hip from a mission two weeks ago, and parts of her waist and back were sporting fresh, blue bruises.

He knew that what she wanted to show him were the healed nicks, sprinkled over her skin like some twisted confetti, in certain, small parts so dense her skin almost looked a different color. Getting cut was part of the job; they all knew that and, most of the time, all those small grazes went by unnoticed; irrelevant, especially if they didn't even draw blood. He could only see three or four more serious scarrings and that warmed his heart some, though he recalled only one of them having been made since she'd joined the team. His jaw tightened as he thought over all the possible scenarios; Sportsmaster  _must_  have been involved. But then his eyes were drawn to her discolored waist, horror spreading across his face.

"Wh—" His arm jerked forward on its own accord in shock of seeing the dark flesh. "What are th— Was I—" He huffed out a breath. " _Did_ _I_ _do_ _that_ _?_ "

Artemis' head turned back at him, confused, her arms glued to her sides. "What?"

"That." He pointed at the two roughly arm-shaped bruises. She stretched her head and twisted slightly to get a better look, still careful to only show him her back.

"Oh, uh... Maybe? I'm not sure. It's nothing."

"Ugh, dammit. I  _knew_  I should've picked a better angle." He sighed and put his palm over his mouth, unable to look away from the markings.

Her brow furrowed. "Am I hearing this right? Are you  _actually_  beating yourself up over the idea that the way you saved my life from  _completely_ _sure_ _death_ wasn't good enough?"

"I should've reacted faster. It took me an entire half second to start doing something." He leaned on the back of the couch, crossing his arms.

"That is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said and you know it."

"Maybe. I dunno, I just— I keep picturing the ways I could've done better."

Artemis rolled her eyes at the way her gesture had backfired and pulled on the shirt before coming over to him, brushing his cheek with her thumb. "For a plan that was cooked up in under three seconds, I'd say it kicked ass; wouldn't you?" She smiled, pulling up the corners of his mouth with her index fingers. "I really can't thank you enough, Wally."

"Any time," he said, leaning in to press a light kiss to her lips, glad to feel her alive in his arms.

"But how did you catch me from below?" Artemis wondered. "If my memory's to be believed, you were on the  _roof_  when I fell."

"Oh, I, uh... I ran all the way down to the street and then a little on the sidewalk to get enough inertia to get you. If I'd just tried to catch you without matching your speed before going up, my arms would've sliced you in three bits. Or you would've crushed me to death. Or... something equally as unpleasant."

"You had time to do that?" Artemis was impressed despite herself.

"Does  _anybody_  remember that if I raced the Speed of Sound, it would win by just a tiny bit?" He cast his hands to the heavens. "I mean, jeez. You'd think I was only the world's fastest civilian man or something by the way you guys treat me and my powers. I'm not Barry, I get it, but, I mean,  _come_ _on_."

"Sorry, Kid Flash." She kissed his nose, then his forehead. And pursed her lips, uneasy about the memories the question brought up. "Uh, if you don't mind me asking... who shouted my name? I heard you and I heard M'gann, but there was someone else—"

"Icicle," Wally said bluntly with an unamused expression. "You know, your almost boyfriend?"

"Ah." She nodded. "He was exaggerating," Artemis added. "We weren't— I mean, I was never— He might have had the wrong idea."

" _Might_  have?"

"Okay, did. But he was a really good friend... way back when."

Wally squinted his eyes. "I still can't believe I didn't know you guys knew each other."

"It never came up." Artemis shrugged. "And, besides, you know who my dad is. It's not crazy to think that I know a couple of bad guys here and there."

"I guess." He stared into the distance, mulling that over. "One thing I've always wondered though: what's his real name?"

Artemis flicked him lightly. "I'm not telling you that."

"Why not? Are you still friends?"

"No, but..." She looked down to her hands that were playing with the collar of his shirt. "That doesn't make all the time we did spend together meaningless. And if I hadn't gotten lucky, I would be right where he is, on the other side of the line, fighting you. He'd have my back," she said slowly. "It feels wrong to betray that. I already snitched on him once; I don't want to do it again. Not even with you."

"But—" Wally started to protest, then pouted, admitting defeat. "Yeah, okay, that's kind of great that you're so loyal. I just wish I had something to throw the guy off his game with; he practically wiped the floor with me when I came back up to the roof."

His expression was smooth, if a little sour, but there was something in his eyes...

"Wallace West, are you jealous?"

"No," he said too quickly. "Maybe. Whatever. Shut up."

Artemis couldn't help but smile. "Feels kinda nice." She kissed him again, this time more drawn out. The room was quiet except for the slight buzzing of a bulb overhead and the rustle of their clothes against each other. His mouth was warm and reminded of home and she felt safe in his arms. In the kind of way her life in constant threat of danger and necessity of mistrust hadn't ever really allowed her to feel.

It was scary, just how much she was getting attached to this dork of a boy.

"So," Wally said when she leaned back, "how 'bout that hot cocoa? And I'll tell you my version of a sob story."

"Also sounds nice." She touched her lips to his once more, unwilling to let him go. The words bubbled up inside her chest and, for a moment, Artemis thought this could be the moment of clarity. "I—"

But they sizzled back down into her stomach, leaving the girl disappointed in herself, but she was determined to let him know  _something_. "You know you mean a lot to me, right?"

"I know," he said, brushing her hair back. "I care about you, too." He would've said his real feelings, ones he'd had time to come to terms with over the last month, but he had an inkling doing so now would do more harm than good. "Now come on; change your pants and let's go pig out."

"Okay," she said, smiling as he straightened and went into the kitchen. Somehow he had this way about him that could calm her down from whatever she was going through. Provide a certain clarity. She wasn't over what had happened, not by a long shot, but she no longer felt quite so horrible. Artemis watched him shuffle around the kitchen as she pulled off the pants of her suit, admiring his efficiency and this aura of... sun around him. It was really the only way she could explain it. He was  _sunny_ —bringing out the best in people, seeing the light, able to burn when the other person called for it, and was a constant source of heat, both physical and emotional.

She wondered if he ever saw himself that way.

When Artemis walked in, hair down from its ponytail and puffy as a result, Wally was just about to serve a giant bowl of ice cream, laced with melted chocolate and bananas, in addition to the drinks. Just as he looked at her, she snuggled into his jersey, which was just a tad too big for her, sniffing at it a little bit.

"This is actually really comfy," she said, marginally surprised. "I don't suppose I could keep it?"

"Play your cards right and we'll see." He winked as she sat down at the table.

He told her about his accident, about how it had nearly taken his life. He spoke of the challenges in going about his everyday routine—how he had to make a conscious effort to walk at a normal human pace or speak without sounding like a Chipmunk. The bullies at school who didn't even bother enough to pick on him  _personally_ , just took advantage of his purposefully defenseless state if he happened to be around during a violent mood. The problems with his extended family. The very uncomfortable sensation he went through every time he hadn't eaten in more than a few hours, like his body was pressing in on itself, crushing him from the inside out. All the money spent on food to keep that from happening too often and the resulting guilt when his parents had to keep putting off vacations they'd talked about for years. The way they worried about him so much, sometimes smothering him with the concern. And, well, the absolutely insane sunburn he got if he was outside in July without clothing or sunscreen for more than three minutes. But that was one problem he really had no control over.

Then, when she asked why he never talked about any of it, he said that he'd earned it.

Not deserved it, he clarified as she was about to protest over the bowl of by now slightly liquidated ice cream.  _Earned_ _._  He had worked hard to recreate his uncle's accident and, though it might not have been his most brilliant decision of all time, it was one he was damn proud of. He had made his life, his goals, his  _biggest_ _wish_ , happen, all on his own, and the bad stuff was just a side effect. It was only one side of the coin, and if the only way to get the other side was to put the whole coin in his pocket, it was a price he was willing to pay.

He'd known there would be drawbacks going in. There was no use yammering on about them when, for the most part, his life was great.

She said it didn't seem fair. Just because he'd indirectly caused a lot of his problems didn't lessen their presence. Didn't invalidate them. He shouldn't have to keep it buried when he felt down.

At that, he took her up to his room and dug out an old, dusty box from the bottom of his closet. Artemis watched, sitting cross-legged on his bed and playing with her hair, as he rummaged through it, finally holding out a collection of wrinkled, folded paper.

"These are the letters my mom wrote to my aunt Iris when I was in the hospital," he said, giving them to Artemis and sitting down next to her with one leg bent on the bed. "I was in a sort of a coma for a while there and she pretty much never left my side. You couldn't use phones in that wing, so my dad..." He sighed, running his fingers through his hair and suddenly seeming much older and tired as Artemis scanned the words that spoke of worry, of pain, of immense despair. "It was a hard time for my family is the point. And while I still maintain it was the right decision for myself and don't regret it one bit... It was selfish of me."

Artemis laid a hand on his cheek, brushing the skin below his eyes with her thumb. "And you think you have to keep it in for them?"

"I know I do." His voice was quiet. "Worrying about me right after the fact is one thing. Watching me suffer for the rest of my life because they weren't keeping a close enough eye on me is something entirely different. Besides," he continued in his normal, cheery tone, "it's really not that bad. My life is actually awesome. I've got the world's coolest hobby, a super girlfriend," he said, grinning, "a couple of decent friends at school—who don't believe said girlfriend exists—, and my grades are, dare I say,  _magnificent_." He grinned. Artemis only raised her eyebrow and his face softened. "Just... don't put me on some sort of pedestal, okay? I mean, I don't even know why you would, 'cause I'm a big, goofy idiot who makes dumb jokes, but— if you ever get the urge to, don't. Deal?"

She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, evaluating. "Okay, deal. But only if you do put yourself on a little pedestal every now and then."

"What?" He scanned her eyes, thoroughly bewildered.

"Don't think I haven't noticed how all the bragging and self-promoting you do is always a joke." Her voice was light and seemingly teasing, but there was genuine concern underneath it. "You could do with a little confidence, you know."

He contemplated that for a bit. "Right back at you."

Artemis lay down on the covers, looking at the ceiling of his room, which was adorned with little glow-in-the-dark stars. "Thanks for sharing, Wally." Her yawn muffled the last word as she looked up at him. "I want to know you. Like,  _really_  know you. Not just some bullshit information and factoids pulled from a file."

He lowered himself next to her, propped up on his elbows, both of them splayed across the bed, legs hanging off the edge. "That's good. I want you to know me, too. And I wanna know  _you_. A great big party of knowing."

"Shut up," she said, smacking him with a laugh. "And what's this about your friends not believing you have a girlfriend?"

"Ehh, it's nothing." He brushed hair back from her forehead lazily. "Just a few guys calling my bluff."

"But you're not bluffing."

"But they don't know that." He winked, then winced as his eye wouldn't open again. His own yawn seemed to suck up most of the air in the room and he collapsed next to Artemis, chin resting on his palms. He turned his head sideways to look at her through half-lidded eyes. "You sleepy, babe? I'm pretty sure it's gonna start getting light out soon."

She grimaced. "A little." She chuckled as her eyes closed of their own accord. "Okay, a lot. But I'm... scared."

"Those three seconds?" he guessed, his fingers drawing feather-light patterns on her neck.

Her mouth tightened. "Yeah. Every time I close my eyes, I—" She sighed. "I feel like I'm falling again. As if the last couple of hours have only been a dream or a hallucination and any second now I'm gonna wake up and hit the asphalt."

He looked at her for a bit, considering, and then took her hand to drag her upward on the bed. "Come here. Hold on, I'll get these off—" he said, wiggling out of his stiff jeans, "Aren't you gonna be hot in the sweatpants?" he asked, pulling off his button-down so that he was left in only a T-shirt and boxers.

"I'm colder now than I usually am."

"Oh. Okay, uh, then; now, under the covers we go..." He waved her forward ceremoniously, eliciting a tiny delirious snigger from Artemis. With a little reach of his hand, the light was off and he climbed into the warm, welcome sheets with her. His arms wrapped around her, holding her tight against him. "I'm here, Artemis. I'm not going anywhere. And when you feel like you're falling, remember that I'll catch you." He grimaced slightly in the dark. "Aaaaas cliche as that sounds."

She smiled, snuggling into the crook of his neck. "If I'm falling, I'll just fast forward to the moment you did."

"Atta girl." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, closing his eyes.

"You know... The moment... I realized you were holding... me..." she said, struggling to form coherent thoughts.

"Hmmm...?" He murmured, equally as drowsy.

"I stopped... being scared..." she finished. His slow smile pressed against her cheek as she went under.

The last thing she consciously noticed was how her eyes were closed and the room was silent, and there was nothing, nothing at all to distract her from her fears, yet what she felt instead... was hope.


	18. 24 HOURS: The First

He wasn't sure what woke him. He wasn't sure when he awoke. He wasn't even really sure who he was or what he was doing wherever he was.

But he heard a calm, quiet breathing coming from somewhere near his right ear, and his arm was splayed out over something firm and warm, and soft, and the pillow his face was buried in to the point of near suffocation smelled faintly of lilies and shooting powder. It was a familiar scent, one of his favorites, and, though he couldn't quite recall what it belonged to, he snuggled deeper into the pillow, inhaling it happily. He felt coarse strands of hair tickle the back of his neck, and a couple of fingers moving on his hips. The sun was warming his bare shoulders and there was an elbow sticking slightly into his abdomen. He could also feel something tangled between his feet. Something stiff... like another pair of legs?

Well, whoever he was, and whomever he was with, he could stay like this forever.

And maybe he did, who knew. Time had lost all meaning in that bed, both of them drifting in and out of consciousness as the outside world went about its business loudly. Days could have passed—with their rhythmic breathing and little sounds made by their mouths, and periodic shuffling into a more comfortable position—and he wouldn't have known.

When the room had finally gotten so hot in the noon heat that neither of them could sleep any longer, he rolled over to his side and groaned, instinctively pulling his partner closer, eyes still closed.

Their fingers played over the covers, interlocking and brushing with a mind of their own, and neither was particularly keen on admitting that there was such a thing as real life and this heavenly bliss couldn't last forever.

Artemis was the first to suck it up and be pragmatic, slowly opening her eyes with a sigh. Wally's head was mere inches from hers and his arm wrapped around her waist. He looked so goshdarn adorable that she couldn't resist leaning in and pressing her moth to the tip of his nose. His chin pushed up and he kissed her back on the lips. It was nice, until they were at the point of panting and the teenagers realized there existed such a thing as morning breath.

With a snort, Artemis pressed closer into his side, exhaling happily. Her palm rested on his chest, which she only now realized was unclothed, and she smiled at how he must have disposed of his shirt sometime in the night much like she had taken off her sweatpants. Who would've thought two people made a bed warmer than one?

"Mmm, babe," Wally said, letting out small whines now and then as the sun shone into his closed eyes, "do you know what time it is?"

"Nope. And don't care. Could we just... stay here all day?"

"If only," he said with, grimacing, "but we have— Uh, wait; actually, I don't think we have anything. Team-related, at least. And my parents won't be home till late tomorrow." He opened his eyes at last and looked at her with wonder and a goofy grin. Her eyes were puffy, endearingly so, and her freakishly long hair spilled everywhere, and he wondered how she managed not to sleep on it, and the collection of freckles below her left ear was perfectly visible from this angle, and he just liked being there with her so much. He'd never shared a bed with anyone, never woken up next to someone, and it was a little strange, but he had to admit—he could  _definitely_  get used to it. "Let's do it. Why the hell not?"

"Yeah, we've worked our butts off and I almost died yesterday," Artemis agreed. "We deserve a day off." She stretched her neck to put a peck on his chin, then sighed yet again. " _However_ _,_ " she continued as she pushed herself upright, letting the blanket fall down to her hips, where her jersey had bunched up slightly to reveal part of her belly, "I would also like to kiss you today and that ain't gonna happen till we've brushed our teeth." She tickled his stomach, laughing when he grabbed the pillow under his head and launched it at her. "Come on, slowpoke; I bet you're starving. We could have breakfast in bed, if you like that kind of thing."

His stomach roared at that and he couldn't help but snicker at the perfect timing. Wally held out his arm to her, putting his other palm where she took it, to pull himself into a sitting position. He slapped his cheeks and blinked his eyes excessively, eventually yawning and falling into her lap headfirst anyway. "I'll just stay here, if you don't mind."

She leaned down and whispered into his ear. "I can make a mean omelette."

"Babe, you have no idea how much you'd even need to make."

"I've been dating you for four months; trust me, I know." She bit on the earlobe lightly. He squirmed a little in pleasure.

"Ugh; you're just  _determined_  to make me get out of this bed, aren't you?"

"Yes; yes, I am. For a little while." Her expression grew tender as her fingers stroked his red hair, which currently stood up in tufts. The corners of her mouth lifted up at the swelling in her chest. Her eyes ran over his pale, muscular back and then, when he rolled over, down his abdomen to where his boxers had been forced dangerously low, stopping just shy of revealing what his Adonis belt lead to. The air suddenly seemed thick and heavy and she had to swallow to continue. She bit her lip, finally sure of what she wanted. "There's a couple of activities I'd like to do with you today and... well, you're gonna need fuel."

"What activities?" His eyes snapped open, looking up at her, perplexed.

She pursed her lips. "You'll just have to wait and see." With that, she gently lifted his head and snaked out from under it. She made her way to the bathroom, the jersey just wrinkled enough to offer the tiniest of glimpses at her underwear, and turned around. "Is there a toothbrush I can borrow?"

Wally had to pry his gaze away from her legs before he could answer. "Er... phh..." He scratched his head, closing his eyes in defeat because, wow,  _her_ _legs_. "Yeah, uh, yes. I'll go get it." He got up, blushing slightly when she very obviously gave him a once-over, lingering on his center with parted lips, and tried his hardest to keep himself from staring at her very distracting skin as he walked by. He couldn't stop himself from turning whirling when he was almost out the door, though. "No, but, seriously, Artemis, what activities?"

She leaned into him, kissing him slowly and sensually despite the morning breath, topping it off with a squeeze of his buttocks. Her stare was direct and unmistakable, and more full of lust than anything he'd ever seen in his entire life before when she leaned back. "Guess."

Bit by bit, his eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead as she walked into the bathroom, heat creeping up on his neck. He swallowed, wetting his dry throat and willed his mouth to close.

"Okay. Well then."

* * *

 

He honestly couldn't help staring at her as they fiddled about in the kitchen. You don't just spring something like that on a guy and expect him to go about his day as usual. She glanced back at him, catching his immediate headsnap back to chopping tomatoes, and rolled her eyes.

"All right, let's have it; I know you've been absolutely bursting with sentences."

"Am not. Maybe a little... confused," he decided, "that's all."

"Are you not interested?" she asked with a smirk as she cracked a dozen eggs into the sizzling pan.

"Oh, no, I'm, uh, I'm very interested—" He cleared his throat. "It just kinda came out of nowhere and I was wondering why. I mean, the last time we talked about this—"

"—was forever ago," Artemis finished, "and back then you kept giggling whenever I got my hands on your ass."

He shrugged defensively. "It tickled. Wait, I don't do that anymore?"

She stifled a chuckle. "Less often." Artemis turned to face him with a hand on her waist, serious. "I nearly  _died_ , Wally."

"Ah," he muttered, looking down. "I was afraid of that. Look, I don't think that's the best reaso—"

"You shouldn't be," she said quietly. "Because that's not what—" She blew out a breath went back to the omelette. "That was only part of it. A small part," she added. Wally's head lifted and he looked at her curiously.

"What was the rest?"

She didn't say anything for a moment and he began to wonder if she had gotten cold feet. Or maybe she simply did not have a better reason and was trying to wing it. But then she spoke. "Last night." He heard her voice clearly and, though her back was turned, he knew she was smiling. "I don't think you really understand what it does to me every time I'm around you."

"I'm that attractive?" He smirked, unable to resist.

"Actually, yeah, you are," she said, surprising him into dumbstruck silence. He'd only been joking, like they always did. Why was she...?  _What_ _?_  "But, more than that, you just have this thing you do... I have no idea  _how_  or what it even is. Just look at me right now." She pivoted back toward him with an eager timidness of all things, gesturing at herself. "Do I look the same as I did when I came here?"

He took a good, long examination of the girl in the jersey, with messy hair sticking out in a giant mane, mismatched socks she'd dug out from his underwear drawer, and an easy smile on her face, and compared it to the broken, crying, miserable mess she'd been barely more than twelve hours before. "No, you don't. Nowhere near it."

She pointed to him with the spatula. " _You_  did that."

"Me?" His voice was doubtful, as was his face. He couldn't possibly— He was just an awkward speedster.

"Yes. You. I'm not...  _fine_  with what happened, but you..." She beamed, blushing, and then the words just came gushing out. "It doesn't have to occupy my every thought when I'm with you. I can have problems and still be okay. Be a functioning human being. You make me be  _alive_  instead of in transition between one crisis and the next. I like who I am when you're near me. I want to be that person."

Wally's eyes widened and the knife he was holding upright clattered onto the counter. His mouth hung open and he was unable to look away from Artemis, searching her face for any sign of insincerity. There was none.

"I feel kind of happy right now, despite everything," she said when he could do nothing but stare at her. "So, yes, while realizing I could die at any moment and not wanting to go through the regret I thought I went through yesterday is a part of it..." she allowed, making a motion with her eyes. "I like feeling happy." She shrugged, bashful. "I wanna be happy with  _you_." As she slowly focused her attention back to the stove, she couldn't help but add: "And, well, it doesn't hurt that I'm, like,  _insanely_  attracted to you right now."

A moment passed, a calm before a storm... and then she was spun around and pressed against the counter, Wally's mouth on hers. Her arms wound around his neck and she rose up on her toes to tower slightly over him. His hands were on her back, fisting in the jersey, and all the pent-up desperation and frustration—over everything from their mutual need to relationship troubles to the previous night's events—was let out in that kiss.

"Uh, don't," she said in between the meeting of their lips, "knock over the food."

"Forget the food; I want  _you_." His hands roamed around her body, eventually settling on her hips and lower, hoisting her up into his arms, her backside resting on the counter.

"Why, Wally," she muttered, her mouth traveling all over his face while his nibbled on her neck, "I believe that is the most romantic thing you've ever said to me." She tightened her legs around his narrow hips, grinding just a little bit. The strangled moan he let out sent her blood boiling. He drew back with pink, swollen lips to look at her.

"Are we actually doing this?" he asked, a little dazed and breathing heavily. His heart raced underneath her palm.

She grinned with an excited laugh and took his head in her hands, brushing their lips together enthusiastically with a loud smack that left him smiling as well. Then she reached over to the stove with one arm and turned off the power. "Take me upstairs, Wally."

His gaze traveled from her eyes to her perfect mouth to her hair to the ruffled shirt to her strong arms and back, and he, somehow, he finally let himself believe that it was real. She was here and she wanted to be with him, in every way he'd been dreaming of for months. She might not have the courage to say it yet, and, really, neither did he, but he could see it in the way she was looking at him right at that moment that she was just as crazy about him as he was about her. Stupidly, over the moon in love.

How could he have gotten so lucky?

He slowly stepped back from the counter, taking care to balance both of them, and wondered whether he could get away with kissing her collarbone while trying to get up the stairs. It probably wasn't a good idea, so he settled for stopping in front of a cupboard.

"Babe, mind getting that bag of chips?" he asked. She raised an eyebrow. He smirked. "You did have a point about the fuel, you know."

* * *

 **CONTINUE TO THE M RATED PART 2 OF THIS CHAPTER HERE:**  http://archiveofourown.org/works/822671

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really want to keep this story T-rated okay. Particularly because after the struggle I went through in the last two days, I'm not sure how many sexytimes there will actually be (though if you enjoy it, be sure to let me know). This way, if you're uncomfortable with it, you can still enjoy the story without the smut taking anything away. Any future chapters with M-rated content will be longer than average (like this one; this bit is average, but the whole thing is three times the normal size), and the smut will be posted simultaneously with their corresponding before/after-sex plot-relevant story here so that everybody gets to have an update. Also, those who just want the smut will have a collection of drabble-type, I guess, one-shots without all the plot getting in the way.
> 
> So everybody wins, right? (This is one of the things I meant by the whole fic, which I'm calling The Middleverse btw, taking place over four (or maybe more? idk this thing is rapidly evolving) separate stories in what has now grown to be an estimate of approximately 450k words for the entire Middleverse (probably only 300k of them for From Beginning to End of the Middle, though).
> 
> Also, I passed the 50k mark yesterday! *claps for self* Also, there's one more update coming for the 24 HOURS arc, it turns out. Just one, I promise, and then it's back to regularly scheduled programming. I've really had a lot of fun with this arc, I hope you have as well.


	19. 24 HOURS: The Family

"Okay, here's the deal, Wall-man." Artemis sat up and stared her boyfriend down. "If, for whatever reason, you pull me back into this bed  _one_ _more_ _time_..." Her eyebrow rose. "See these fingers?" She held her palms up and wiggled the digits. "They will get with the tickling."

The corners of his mouth twitched, but he tried his hardest to keep a straight face and play along. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I know your kryptonite," she affirmed and held her index finger right at his nose, which caused him to jerk back in surprise. Her eyes narrowed threateningly. "I will use this."

He blinked, and then started guffawing. "Oh, babe, we  _have_  to do that sometime."

Artemis lowered her finger and eyed him suspiciously. "Do what?"

"Reenact this whole Rapunzel/Eugene thing with an actual pan. Oh, oh, your hair is even super long and blond! It's like a match made in heaven. Hi." He raised one eyebrow and smiled crookedly, flipping his hair with the most exaggerated smirk she had ever seen on his face. His voice was excessively low and uncharacteristically throaty. "How's your day going? The name's Flynn. They just can't get my nose right." He gave her the nod.

She stared at him in what he thought was an extremely good imitation of Rapunzel's confused reaction, until he realized Artemis wasn't acting at all. "I... have no idea what is happening here. What is with you, Wally?"

His face fell, brows drawn together. " _Tangled_ ," he said very obviously. "The thing you just... referenced. That wasn't a reference? You quoted it word for word; I could've sworn—" He scratched his head.

She brushed her hair aside with a flick. "Not everything most people say is a reference to some obscure movie."

"Babe." He put a hand on her bare shoulder in mock-pity. "You do realize Tangled is Disney's most successful movie since, like, ever, right?"

"Whatever; the only Disney movie I ever saw was Alice In Wonderland and I didn't like it that much."

" _Whaaaaaaaaaat_ _?_ " His mouth feel open. "Okay, that does it; we need to schedule a Disney-marathon pronto,  _starting_  with Tangled. You just have to promise not to fall in love with Flynn. He's a real hazard; even  _I_ _'_ _ve_  got a crush on the guy."

"That's it; I'm leaving." She brushed away the blankets and managed to put one leg on the floor before being grabbed around the waist and pulled backward. "What did I say about the tickling?" she reminded, squirming to reach his underarm to make him pay.

"Oh, come on, babe; I just really don't want you to go." He looked at her head in his lap from above and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, her nose brushing his chin. "This day has been kinda perfect and I hate that it has to end. Can't you stay?"

Her face softened. "I would be lying if I said I didn't want to." She patted his cheek. "But I have to go deal with... well, stuff. My mom's probably worried sick that I got arrested or something."

He frowned, mulling that over. "Arrested?"

Her expression turned sheepish. "...it wouldn't be the first time, is all I'm saying." She looked away with a very, very innocent expression. When her eyes met his again, she rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Look, I have a tendency to go patrolling when I'm pissed, okay? The point is I have to go. I had a great time, though." She smiled at him from below, her stomach fluttering a little.

"Buuuuuuut..." He pouted, his lower lip extending far below the upper in such a puppy face. She snorted and kissed him.

The sound of a car's engine stopping just outside drew his attention. He looked outside, worried someone had broken down, and then his eyes went wide as baseballs, complete with little red stitches, and he turned back to her, all but pushing her buck naked form out of the bed. "Yes; yes, you definitely have to go."

"What is—?" She stared at him in amusement as he dashed about the room, putting every messy thing back in its place. "Let me guess; your parents came home unexpectedly?"

"Mmm-hmm." She watched him pull out the trash bag full of condom wrappers and actual condoms out of the bin and stuff it in his closet. "Now, if you would kindly get out the window once they come inside, that would be swell."

"Wally, I have been here before. They  _know_  I have been here before. They do not know I spent the night."

"Yeah, uh, you haven't been here when they're not home." He pulled on his baggiest, most comfortable, and dirty clothes. In other words, what he usually wore around the house when nobody was there. "And my mom's psychic; I'm telling you, if you go out the front door, she'll know."

"Have you forgotten we know an actual psychic? I'm pretty sure  _she_  wouldn't even be able to tell, and your mom's no M'gann."

"Look, babe; just humor me, okay?" Wally pleaded. "Now that we've taken things to the, uh, next level, I have found that I kinda like this new level and I would really prefer to  _stay_  on this new level and not be reduced to below ground with, like, maybe not even being on the team for a while and no phone privileges, which is exactly what will happen if my mom finds out what just went on here. I may be being paranoid, but just... okay?"

She ran her tongue over her teeth with pursed lips and finally sighed. "Fine; apparently I just can't resist you." She looked around for her clothes and then remembered she didn't have any. Artemis settled for grabbing the jersey and sweatpants from the night before. "This is mine now," she informed him, pulling her hair out of the shirt and gathering it up in a ponytail.

He grinned. "It looks good on you. Hey, uh, take this jacket. It's getting a little dark out. And call me when you get home." He kissed her and started going to greet his parents. "Oh, and, um..." He whirled around at the last second. "Remember what we were talking about yesterday, about my friends?"

"And how they're convinced you're single?"

"Yeah, well... There's a dance coming up at my school next week. I wasn't planning on going, but I was thinking if you wanted..." He scratched his neck and tapped his foot, waiting for her to say something.

Artemis grabbed her uniform and stuffed it in a plastic bag. "I will be there and I will knock them dead." She winked. "Not literally, of course. Though I suppose we  _could_  work something out if the situation called for it."

A smile spread on his face. "All right, then uh..." His head turned to the ruckus downstairs. He let out a shaky breath. "I love you, but get out."

She was already halfway out the window when it clicked. "What?"

"What?" At first it was a genuine question, but then realization dawned. "Oh, uh, I meant..." His brain worked in overdrive as he attempted to make up a decent-sounding explanation. "Ah, forget it," he surrendered. "Come on; like you didn't know that already."

A long pause followed.

Then Artemis half-turned back to him with one foot on the other side of the glass and smiled tentatively. Her eyes conveyed what her mouth wasn't ready for and, seeing his face, she knew he understood. Not just her own feelings, but that hearing the words said to her wouldn't send her running. If anything, they were further incentive to stay.

Mary was calling for him downstairs so, with one last flustered smile, she disappeared out the window and felt free as she hadn't in a long time.

* * *

Artemis' lips still stretched from one ear to the other when she unlocked the front door to her apartment twenty minutes later. She glanced in the mirror as she took her uniform out of the bag to put it in with the dirty laundry, and was surprised at the mess she looked. Her ponytail barely qualified as such, with tufts standing up unevenly on her head, and her lips were still a bit pinker than usual, and there was a bit of dirt on her neck, and... she appeared to not be wearing a bra. With a chuckle, she texted Wally to hide it, wherever they had left it. Couldn't have been left in the living room; his parents would have noticed already before she left.

No wonder she had gotten weird looks on her way over.

Smoothing her hair—eventually giving up and releasing it from the hairband—and willing that stupid grin to come off her face, Artemis made her way to the kitchen, where she guessed Paula was. "Mom! I'm home! Can we talk?"

"We sure can." A voice, which stopped Artemis in her tracks, came from behind the wall. "I've been waiting for hours, little sis."

Forcing herself to make step after step, she came to the doorway and into view of a sight she'd never expected to ever see again.

Jade was sitting at their small dining table in civvies, her massive hair gathered in an explosion of a ponytail, sipping tea beside their mother. A baseball cap was lying on the wooden surface, one of its edges resting casually on a corner of an open photo album, making it unbalanced. There were empty plates in the sink and the air smelled faintly of milk-drenched, stale white bread with melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

The long-forgotten smell procured an image of her younger self in Artemis' mind, barely old enough to ride a bike, lying in her bed and watching as her mother would read  _Alice_ _in_ _Wonderland_  to her sister with a treat after a particularly vivid bonding time with the mythical father Artemis knew existed, but saw so rarely she could never quite recall what he looked like.

"It's been a while, sis," Jade said, closing the photo album and glancing at Paula. The sound of the familiar taunt that seemed to never go away despite what her actual words were snapped Artemis out of the memory vignette. The taunt hadn't always been there, but she couldn't identify when it had appeared. "Not much has changed, apparently. You still  _love_  to stare at me without saying anything. It's rude. Our mother's present."

Artemis took a breath and set her uniform down on a nearby chair. "What are you doing here, Jade?"

"Dad told me to come." She shrugged. "He obviously wasn't going to, mom," she added. "I can't imagine why you even asked. But I figured, what the hell. Haven't been back here in years or kicked your butt in months..." She smirked. "So here I am. Mommy and I were just bonding over the pre-prison days."

"Jade..." Paula reached out.

"No. That was really stupid of you and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. You shouldn't have taken the fall for Dad. We'd have been better off in foster care than with him." Jade pushed her chair back and got to her feet, exiting the kitchen out into the hallway, past her sister. Before she left the doorway, she stopped. "It's a nice thing you're doing for Artemis," Jade said, turning back slightly. "Perhaps one day the girls of this family will stick together." She snorted. "But I wouldn't hold your breath." She made her way to their old room.

Artemis stared at Paula for a minute, at a loss for what to do. "I'm sorry I ran out on you."

Her mother looked at the hands interwoven tightly in her lap. "I'm just glad you came back. But I can't— I won't—"

"It's my life, mom. Thanks for looking out for me, but it's my decision. And I'm staying a superhero."

"You coming, sis?" The words were drawn out, as if Jade was bored. Artemis braced herself for a confrontation, but found her big sister kneeling on her old bed, looking at the faded and worn poster on the wall and touching it lightly with her fingertips. She didn't appear to have any weapons on her—though, knowing her, there were probably poison pills hidden in places the light couldn't reach—, so Artemis went over to the closet and stripped of Wally's clothes, tucking them away with care and warmth, and changed into something she was more accustomed to wearing.

"Well, what do you want?" she finally asked, when Jade kept examining the poster. "If you're here to convince me to stop being a superhero, I can just tell you right now that's not gonna happen."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jade said, finally turning to her. "You're one of us. The fight is in your blood and in your mind and no matter how hard you try to get it out, it will never go away." Her cold gaze wandered over to the the jersey visible in the half-open drawer, lips twitching up with amusement. "The better advice would be to tell you to stop fighting it and embrace it, like I did a long time ago, but those words wouldn't reach any ears and we both know it." She stepped off the bed and looked over the jackets of a couple of books.

"Then what are you doing here?" Artemis crossed her arms.

"I was feeling... curious. About where it all started." Jade shrugged. "You know, little sis, sometimes months go by before I think of the reasons I chose to call myself Cheshire and wear his mask. Hear me laugh. Watch me smile."

"Do you ever do either?" Artemis asked, raising an eyebrow.

"None of your business." She looked around, examining the broken blinds and slightly splintered panels, and the spot where she'd spilled nail polish on the wall when she was eight. "I mostly came to get Dad off my back. If he asks, we had a swordfight where I tried to convince you to come work for him, and even though I won, you refused so aggressively I decided it was more fun to let you fight for the good guys."

"You won?" Artemis snorted. "Please; I can just get my old sword and we can dish it out for real."

"At this point, it's a little redundant, wouldn't you say?" Jade smirked, but then her face tightened. "What's mom been like since she got out?"

"Overbearing," she said immediately. "Like a mom is supposed to be. She's really trying to make up for all the lost years, Jade. I'm sure she wants to try with you, too."

"Yeah, well, I knew her a lot longer than you did." Jade turned away, lips thinning. "She wasn't always a saint either."

"You could get to know her  _now_ ," Artemis suggested, walking over.

Jade chuckled darkly and went over to their airvent, pulling a screwdriver out of her boot. "This stroll down memory lane sure was fun, little sis, but let's not pretend we're anything more than strangers who make each other's lives miserable and happen to share blood." She reached into her old hiding place, from when she hadn't known any better, and took out a necklace with a pair of ornate, heavy earrings with metal lace and an opaque teal jem, and blew the dust off it. "Knew I forgot somethin'. Mom gave these to me when I turned eleven. She got them right before leaving Vietnam." She clenched her fist and then threw them at her little sister. "I'm sure they'll mean more to you than they ever did to me."

"Jade... it doesn't have to be like this," Artemis said, holding onto a glimmer of hope that maybe,  _maybe_  someday they could resemble a family again. "We're sisters. We could put the past behind us and, I don't know, ignore the present when we're in battle, and be okay the rest of time."

"Sorry, Blondie," Jade said. "I don't do 'okay'." Her eyes flickered over to the jersey again. "Your thing with the Flash kid is interesting to watch, though. Wasn't it just yesterday you two almost let Dr. Roquette, was it, die because of how bad of a team you made? And now you come home wearing his clothes and  _so_ _obviously_  having been in his bed. I mean, really, it's a wonder mom didn't notice." Her eyes widened scandalously.

"How did you—?"

"You might want to wipe that happy glow off your skin; it's very revealing. I gotta say, watching you grow up from the corner of my eye has definitely been a can't-miss movie. He was your first, wasn't it? I remember mine—" She sighed nostalgically, as if it had been nothing but hearts and sparkles, but the sound that came out reminded Artemis more of a lack of caring. "Hmm, well, enjoy it while it lasts; it definitely won't for long."

Artemis touched her cheek absentmindedly, wondering if there really was something different about her besides the messiness and, before she knew it, the Cheshire Cat had disappeared.

All at once, it crashed on her exactly who she was and where she came from, and what she was likely to become. She quietly closed the door so her mother wouldn't hear—there was time to talk later—, grabbed the jersey, curled up on her bed, and closed her eyes, holding it close.

He would catch her when she fell. He was the anchor in her storm of a life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's it for the 24 HOURS arc! I hope you liked it (the reviews seem to indicate so); it's probably some of the better writing I've done and I enjoyed doing it tremendously, and I really think I've improved and hope I will continue to do so in the course of this fic. From this point on, it's regular programming for the foreseeable future as I haven't decided if/when I'll do another multi-chapter arc like this (the whole thing is 21 thousand words!!!), but, rest assured, there's a lot of good stuff coming anyway. Thank you for sticking with the fic this long!


	20. Dance, Dance

"How are you doing?" M'gann's voice was quiet as she fiddled with the design of her best friend's dress.

"What do you mean?" Artemis asked, examining her organic-clad behind in M'gann's mirror. "I... think this is too low. I'm not really a bare back kinda gal. I think."

"I mean with the fall. We haven't really gotten a chance to talk." The shapeshifter altered the fabric of the organic material to cover the entire skin, with a high collar. "Are you this kinda gal?"

Artemis pursed her lips, her eyes scrutinizing the suit-like, smooth dress that seemed to call for only a top hat and monogrammed cuffs to be worn in a performance at some classy cabaret. They turned into slits as she focused all her energy on trying to figure out the answer to the question, her face grimacing like a child's.

Finally, she blew out a breath so hard her lips vibrated and crossed her arms. "Zataaaannaaaa!" she called out into the Cave.

Twenty seconds later, the magician burst into the room with mussed hair, puffy eyes, an oversized T-shirt hanging off one shoulder, no pants in sight, and a bit of melted chocolate stuck to her cheek. She immediately took a battle stance. "What? Who's here? Is it Klarion?" Her fists stayed clenched in front of her, face contorted in rage, as the picture surrounding her slowly sank in. Her focused glare morphed into a scowl as she realized why she'd been called there. "I hate you both."

"You look like you just crawled out of bed," M'gann mused.

"You should be a detective," Zatanna spat back and went to lie on the bed, pushing her legs up. She spotted a nearby bag of popcorn and grabbed it, popping bits into her mouth as her head hung off the side of the bed, hair brushing the floor. With a yawn, her eyes ran over Artemis, upside-down and she winced, shaking her head. "Black-and-white is so not your color. And that length is... no. Try something form-fitting," she told M'gann. "What sort of shindig are you dressing up for, anyway?" She teleported the half-eaten chocolate bar she'd fallen asleep on from her room right next door and alternated between biting it and the popcorn.

"Wally's taking me to some sort of school dance and I, of course, have nothing to wear." Artemis groaned as M'gann experimented with the shapes and flow using her mental commands. "I only have the one fancy dress. I don't even know what looks good on me."

"Oh." Zatanna pursed her lips. "Yeah, no, if it's a school dance, form-fitting isn't gonna do it. How formal is this thing?"

"Uh... semi, I think?" Artemis took her hair down from its bun to see how it looked.

"Hmm. M'gann?"

"Oh, don't look at me," she said. "It takes me forever to choose what to wear when it can be anything."

"Fair point," Zee allowed. "Okay, I think we can go one of two ways: like, really light and flowy and easy to move in—I know how you like that—or extra simple, clean and crisp, but still yowza. Whatcha think, Arty?"

Artemis looked into the mirror for a long moment. "I want to stand out," she said decisively. "So, I guess, simple it is. Everyone dresses really fancy for these things, right?" She glanced at the catalogue Zatanna had picked up from M'gann's nightstand and motioned for her to toss it over. "Those people don't just get to assume that Wally's forever single," she muttered, flipping through the pages, "I know they're his friends, but if  _they_  love him, why would they refuse to believe anyone else could, either?" Artemis' stare was as icy as the light blue material M'gann was trying out. The other girls exchanged a look, grinning wisely. "This." She pointed to a dress with a sweetheart neckline, thin straps, plain skirt with a bit of volume, and one shimmering area of embellishment wrapping around the torso right below her chest. "I want this."

M'gann took a look and worked her magic. Zatanna, however, was scrutinizing Artemis' every move with narrowed eyes, the corners of her lips straining to keep from lifting up.

"What?" Artemis asked, spinning around to see how the dress looked on her.

Zee put her tongue in her cheek. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just wondering whether that was a slip of the tongue or a deliberate confession."

Artemis glanced at her from the corner of her eye while messing with her hair. "What was?"

"'Those people shouldn't assume I don't love Wally.'" Zatanna wiggled her eyebrows.

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Zee, that's not what I said."

"It sure sounded like that's what you  _meant_ , and we both know that's what's important."

"Look, I don't want to have this conversation right now, okay?" She said with enough vulnerability that her friends knew to back off without pestering further. Her feelings were confusing and scary enough without letting other people in on them.

"Ugh, when do you ever?" Zatanna pouted, biting off another piece of chocolate. "I'm  _bored_. Nothing ever happens here besides villains and training, and those two—" She pointed to M'gann. "—being all over each other." She suddenly jumped and squirmed on the sheets, levitating herself two inches above them as she realized it was  _M_ _'_ _gann_ _'_ _s_ _bed_ _._  "Why won't you let me live vicariously through you?"

"Because you have your own life that you should be living," Artemis said, waving her hair at her, "I know hiding out in the Cave with Gar seems like a desirable option right now—"

"Hey, I go out into Happy Harbor all the time."

"But you can't stay here forever," M'gann said, sitting down next to her. "Look, Zatanna, losing a family member is hard." She thought of Marie, despite knowing her for such a short time. "But—"

"He's not  _gone_. He's still here. I just can't... talk to him." She looked down. Which was up from everyone else's perspective.

"But you don't have to avoid everyone else because of it," Artemis said, going to the other side of the bed and laying her hand on Zatanna's. "You have to go back to school sometime."

"No, I don't," she crossed her arms, blood really pooling in her head now. "Here, everyone knows who my dad was. Is. Most of you were there. You know he gave everything up for me." Tears welled up in her eyes. "But out there, he's just another deadbeat parent who abandoned his child. Don't try to deny it," she said quickly. "Believe it or not, I've  _talked_  to my classmates. It's not fair to him and I won't stand for it."

"You don't have to go back, though." Artemis lay down next to her, the blonde hair spilling onto the floor. "You can start over somewhere else. In Happy Harbor High, even. Stop yourself from going mad in this place."

"Yeah, I don't know; it has a certain charm when Gar and I are the only ones here. You don't even have any idea what we do then, do you?" She grinned slyly.

"No..." M'gann's eyes narrowed. "Is that—whatever it is—why he's always so disappointed when Conner and I come home from school?"

"What?" Artemis grimaced. "He adores you two."

"I know, which is why I've been so surprised when for the last month he wouldn't talk to either one of us for like twenty minutes once we came through the door. Zatanna, what exactly have you been doing?"

"That's between him and me. Oh, relax, M'gann; it's nothing bad. But still a secret." She pulled herself upright, putting a hand to her temple when the room started spinning because of the blood rush. "Look, guys, I appreciate you trying to, like, intervent me, but I'm really just not ready for this. And school's almost out anyway. Maybe next year."

As she stumbled her way to the door, M'gann and Artemis looked on with concern on their faces, elbows propped up on the bed. Artemis brushed her hair back with her hand, examining the fall of the soft curls, so often straight as straw.

"So," M'gann started, eyeing her warily. "Your entire aura practically screams that something happened with you and Wally. And if I had to guess..." Her brow furrowed as she tried to decide whether to continue or not. Just because she was telepathic and picked up on these things without trying to didn't make it any of her business. She sighed. "He told you he loved you, didn't he?"

Artemis smiled at the memory. "'Course he did. He's Wally."

Zatanna's black nest of a hair popped into the doorway immediately.

"Who said what now?"

* * *

Wally leaned to his side as they entered the dimly lit, crowded gym, littered with colorful reflections from the discoball, and whispered. "Is it weird that I really like the way you look in that dress, but I also kinda want to get you out of it?"

Artemis turned her head slightly to examine the boy in his tux and bowtie-less dress shirt whose collar hung open, with slightly overgrown hair falling into his eyes just a tiny bit, and, all of a sudden, her lust for him was hard to contain. She took a quick nibble on his earlobe. "I hear that's completely..." She blew a hot breath on his ear. "...normal."

Wally blinked, then cleared his throat and disentangled himself from her arms, stepping a foot away from her and keeping his eyes straight ahead. He demanded that his blood be pumped where it was supposed to go and not his ears... or other places. "You play dirty," he muttered so low she almost didn't hear.

Artemis grinned. "You bet I do."

She took him by the hand and led them both onto the dancefloor, finding a neat little spot that wasn't in the very center, but where she could still show her man off. Wally didn't look as pleased at the prospect, glancing around every couple of seconds to where passers by were, for lack of a better word, staring at them.

In his experience, attention and high school did not bode well.

"Artemis," he said, spinning her around effortlessly while his eyes fidgeted around relentlessly, and pulled her close to not have to shout. "I'm not so sure this was a good idea anymore."

"I am," she declared and grabbed his hair to kiss him right on the mouth, long and hard. His lips melted into hers and, for a moment, the obnoxious music was reduced to background noise, and nobody existed in the entire world but the two of them. Everyone else blurred together, a mess of blue, red and black. There was a tingling wherever their skin touched, wherever the weight of the other pressed onto every nerve ending, igniting a trail of extra sensitivity.

The air was hot and laced with sweat, but not the kind of sweat they were used to and even found arousing—for it was a symbol of what their bodies were capable of. No, this was the kind that would make them dizzy and exhausted if they did not feel so energized and alive in each other's arms. Artemis was honestly surprised at how no one was fainting. There must have been a window that could be cracked open there somewhere.

When they finally broke apart, the couple did not do so willingly. But a cough from a nearby chaperone had to be obeyed, especially since Artemis was only a visitor and did not want to risk getting thrown out before having her fun.

"Come on, I'll, uh..." Wally looked around, running his fingers over his hair. "I'll introduce you to my friends."

"The friends who don't have faith in you?"

"It's just lighthearted teasing. I'm sure they weren't serious about you."

"Whatever you say, Wall-man." She adjusted her top, pulling it down slightly to show off her cleavage. His bemused look elicited a raised eyebrow. "Problem?"

"Nnno?" He side-eyed her suspiciously. "Okay, now, remember: I am a sophomore, my name is Wallace Rudolph West, I cannot throw a ball farther than my arm, I'm a huge dork, and I get winded whenever I run more than thirty yards."

She burst out laughing. "Sorry, I can't imagine that; how do you pull that off in PE?"

"Freshman drama class," he said.

"I need to see that. But, wait, don't you run track?"

"I used to," he said, shrugging. "Before the accident. But it wasn't at school anyway."

"Why don't you start it up again?" she asked as they made their way to the outskirts of the dancing area where the music wasn't quite so loud, thinking of the shirt she'd slept in for four nights in a row.

"It'd just be hard now. Holding back while also plucking trophies." He grabbed a cup of punch on the way. "Or worse, intentionally coming in second. I don't need another area in my life where I don't win. But I couldn't handle the scrutiny if I won. And, in any case, it's so much more fun being Kid Flash than it is running at human speeds; I don't really know why I'd want to go back to that."

She smiled. "I guess I feel similarly about this beginner's archery class my friends signed me up for once. Such a waste of time. So," Artemis said, looking around once more, "where are these friends of yours?"

"Wallace, is that you?" A kid with retro sunglasses and a bold red tux, complete with a weird pixellated symbol on one side of the tux, approached them.

"Hey, man." Wally shook his hand. "What's up? I can't decide if this shindig is awesome or sucks."

"Oh, hey; judging by this sweet piece of arm candy you've got, I'm gonna say awesome." The kid grinned as Wally shot Artemis an apologetic look. She only smiled sweetly at her boyfriend. It was  _so_  on. "Well, are you this girlfriend he's been talking about incessantly?"

She glanced at Wally furtively as he sipped his drink, and leaned closer to the other guy, motioning to him with her index finger conspiratorially. "Actually, I'm a feelings hooker."

Wally choked on the punch and spilled some of it on his shoes, trying to keep his budding laugh hidden. The other guy's face turned to frozen confusion.

"A... what?"

"Yeah, for five hundred bucks, I'm your date for the night. Shh, don't tell anyone." She winked, vaguely noticing how Wally was turning red with muffled laughter in her peripheral vision. It could pass for embarrassment, though. Oh, yeah; she was sure that's what the kid thought. Embarrassment.

"Wait... really? You can do that?"

She straightened with a scowl and crossed her arms. "Of course not. Jeez, Wally, just how gullible  _are_  your friends?"

The fall on his face was the last straw and Wally burst out guffawing, clutching his knees for support and wiping tears off his face.

"Wh—" The guy frowned. "I'm not sure I like you."

"I'm not sure I like  _you_."

He turned to the redhead. "Bro, a little support would be nice here."

Wally forced himself to breathe for long enough to reply and put an arm over Artemis' shoulder. "Dude, you had that coming. I mean, 'arm candy'? Really? Come on, you're better than that." He tried to keep his chuckles in, but they just wouldn't oblige, practically causing an explosion in him. "I swear he's not usually like this," he said to Artemis. "I think your general amazingness just kinda stunned him; heck,  _I_  wouldn't believe I was dating you right now."

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Which must be why boys are so stupid." She pressed a content kiss to his lips, letting go with a wet sound.

"Anyway, uh... This is Artemis, my actual girlfriend. For real. In real life. Artemis, this is—"

"Johnny; I know." She gave him a once-over. "You really think I wouldn't recognize those Stiller shades and record symbol after two months? Unless you have other friends obsessed with that thing." She turned to Johnny. "I hope you know you've done irreparable damage to this guy," she said, using her finger as a warning. "Next thing I know, he's gonna start wearing horns to our dates."

"I've told you a hundred times," Wally said, casting his eyes to the light-splattered ceiling as his hand slid down from her shoulder to her waist. "If you'd only give it a chance, you'd see it's not as stupid as you think."

"I can't see how it wouldn't be and I did read the first twenty pages, don't you remember?" Artemis played with her hair.

"But that doesn't  _count_!" He turned to her, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. "Everybody I have ever spoken to about this read the first twenty or hundred pages and gave up and then read further and loved it!'

"Then you're just gonna have to wait a year for to give it another try."

"But it will be over by then and the daily updates are the best part!"

She slowly shook her head. "Are we really gonna have this argument again  _now_?"

"You started it," Wally said innocently.

Johnny looked back and forth between the two of them. "You guys are adorable."

"Why is that always people's reaction to us?" Wally wondered.

"I think they have the romance glasses on instead of us," Artemis said wryly.

"So, spill; how did you meet?" Johnny asked.

Wally and Artemis exchanged startled looks and grabbed each other's hands behind their backs before what was sure to be a long and convoluted story comprised of half-finished sentences.

* * *

"I don't understand how you can deal with that."

Artemis was shaking with anger beside Wally in the middle of the dance floor in the now thinning crowd, glaring at the behinds of the retreating boys, wishing her mere thoughts could ignite flames in their jackets. He was rubbing her upper arm, but, after she glared at him too, he dropped it.

"You get used to it." He shrugged, trying to deny how shaken he actually was.

"But  _why_  would you get used to it?" Artemis took personal offense at his recklessness. "You can wipe the floor with them blindfolded with both hands tied behind your back. Why do you let them treat you like that?"

"I don't want to draw attention to myself. I was really a wimp not that long ago."

"People change." She smoothed her hair back in frustration, pacing in place. "Wally, he just threatened to cut the brakes on your bike."

"Yeah, and implied doing worse to you." His face contorted with rage at the memory. "What I don't get is why you're mad at him for me and not yourself." He was almost at the point of yelling.

"Because I  _know_  he wouldn't get the chance to lay a finger on me before he lost the use of his hands," Artemis spat back, then lowered her voice at the looks she got and took him away from the crowd. "I didn't do anything because I know your cover's important. For me, he was all talk, and I can take that. I've gotten much worse. But for you—" Her nostrils were the size of the Holland Tunnel. "How many times have you let that jackass  _actually_  stuff you in a locker? How many times have you just accepted verbal abuse from him? When will enough be enough? You could rule this school and instead you're miserable every day."

"Artemis, I can't, okay?" Wally stuffed his fists in his pockets. "If I stand up, I— They'll find out. It's  _so_  easy to find out. This is just high school. Only two more years. I'll get out and I'll start fresh somewhere else, but I can't go from zero to... whatever I am. I can't. I was gonna punch him for  _you_ , but you—"

"No." Artemis snarled, recalling the way Wally's hand had fisted after the guy was done with threatening him and moved onto her. How she had grabbed it and held it down will all her strength. "You will only get to punch him for me when you do it a dozen times for yourself first. Otherwise there will be  _hell_ to pay." There was an almighty fury in her eyes; he'd swear he saw flames burning in them. "I don't need you to defend my honor. But  _you_  need to suck it up and defend your own." She spun around and stormed off.

"Artemis! Where are you going?"

"To put some water on my face!" She yelled back over her shoulder and stomped her way to the bathroom. She leaned against the door and drew in a few deep breaths.

Wally could take such good care of himself. Why, oh, why  _wouldn_ _'_ _t_  he? The threats that were made sounded like something that could actually hurt him  _for_ _real_. Something not even his superpowers would save him from. Cutting the brakes... Ugh. The worry had clamped its hooks over her heart and she knew it would never let go unless she did something.

She blinked some excess water out of her eyes and immediately wiped it away, for there was no more where that came from. Artemis peeked out the tiniest opening in the door, watching Wally monitor the bathroom exit like a hawk. Her temporary dislike of his training grew tenfold.

Well, air vents had always been favored in her family.

She scoured the empty halls of school—fumes rising from her head—for the boys who had snuck off without permission. Big and bulky, and, no doubt, very intimidating to everyone in the school. But she had faced off her father and won.

Nothing scared her.

She smiled slightly when she saw a science trophy for not one, but two members of the West-Allen family in the hall, but the ferocious snarl was back on her face when she found the bullies in some classroom.

"Hello, boys." Artemis was standing in her heels and pretty dress, hair falling over her shoulders, the very picture of beauty, but her stare was full of icy fire and her voice was so low and emotionless they would have run right then and there if they were smarter.

"Well, well," the leader said, running his eyes over her. "So you decided to ditch the loser and hang with us, huh?"

She chuckled. "Actually, I came here," she said, taking a step closer, "to tell you that if you ever lay a hand on my boyfriend  _again_... You will regret it for the rest of your pathetic, miserable life."

He stared at her for a bit, as if to see whether she was joking or not, and then started laughing. "Oooh, an angry girl. I'm so scared."

"You should be." Artemis went over to the wooden mop in the corner and, with one precisely-aimed kick of the heel, broke it in half, holding the splintered end of the stick half an inch from his neck in another swift and well-timed move. "I started hand-to-hand combat before you could even walk, buddy."

One of his lackeys approached her and she dropped him to the floor with one sharp touch, never letting go of the stick. The leader tried to push her away and knock it out of her hand, but she quickly turned him around and pinned his arms behind his back, using his own strength against him. She pulled the stick out from under her arm and brushed the back of his neck with the sharp splinters.

The third didn't even dare come near her after that.

It was even easier than she'd expected; these boys seemed to be lacking even the most basic combat training, relying only on brute force.

"Now, listen closely. Are you listening, Harry?"

"Y—yes," he stammered out when she flicked his neck with the splinters. She could see the vein on his neck pumping ferociously.

"I could kill you with one. simple. touch." She jabbed a finger in the meat on his back, enjoying his visible flinch. "I'm not going to. But I want you to know that I could. And I  _will_ do much worse than kill you if I  _ever_  find out you spoke another word to Wallace West. You got that?"

"U—uh huh."

She drove a knee into his back. "Complete sentences, Harry."

"Yes, I—I got it."

"Good. You should also be aware I know where you live." She put the driver's license she'd pickpocketed back at the dance into his pocket. "Harry Trout, Wallaby Road 56. I am  _very_  good at climbing trees." She let go of him and stepped back, the sight of clammy sweat on his jaw feeling like a rainbow after a storm to her. "Same goes for you two." She examined his sidekicks, one of whom was still half-paralyzed on the floor, and threw their licenses on a table. She turned around and strutted away, knowing all eyes were on her. Artemis could just  _feel_  Harry rubbing his neck behind her.

"Oh, and..." She whipped back around, causing him to lose his balance a bit. "You never mention this to Wally. It's a secret that won't leave this room. Just never ever acknowledge his existence ever again and you'll never see me in your entire life. But tell anyone or touch him..." Her lip curled back, revealing her shiny, white, and, in this light, seemingly pointed teeth. "I will be your worst nightmare."

They nodded, one by one, and she left, satisfied with the night's work and ready to return to the party. Maybe even sneak in a slow dance with the boy she loved, or go home with him later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dealing with some personal problems lately and I lost my will to write for a while there, but I really hope it's over now (which the fact that I've written almost 4k words today would lead me to believe) and updates will continue as planned!
> 
> Also, if you haven't picked up on it, the thing Wally keeps referencing is Homestuck. If you don't know what that is, I highly suggest you check it out; if you do know what that is and don't like it—tough luck, 'cause it's gonna be a running gag; if you already love it—doesn't it seem like Wally's kinda deal? I mean, I might be getting it wrong, but I feel like he would really love. Not on a quite obsessive con-going level, perhaps, but he'd so appreciate the narrative devices and the meta. Lots and lots of meta.


	21. It's Not Easy Being Gar

"You. Are.  _Toast_."

Wally's eyes were narrowed, his stare focused, teeth clenched and arm muscles flexed, ready for anything at any time. The Inhibitor bracelet emitted pulses of red light on his wrist, and he sunk his teeth into his bottom lip as his every movement depended on the screen.

"Yeah, toast with peanut butter, jelly, and cherries on top, 'cause that's what you'll end up trying to bribe me with to let you win." Robin snorted, grin stretching from one ear to the other. He was sitting on the couch with legs crossed in his lap, his hacker gloves abandoned in the corner along with Wally's infrared glasses and Kaldur's walter-bearers. And Conner's empty case of Shields, just in case.

"Please." Wally had to keep himself from sniggering. "I spend every day running faster than any race car; I  _think_  I can win a game of MarioKart Wii."

"Think again." Conner sent a blue shell his way and engaged in a wrestling match with Kaldur's motorcycle. "After I'm done, there won't be anything left of the race track."

"Uh, dude, the objective is to win the race, not blow everything up," Wally interjected, momentarily distracted by the boy's sending green shells in every possible direction regardless of other drivers, while his own motorcycle was getting carted out of the snowy pits of DK Summit.

"No reason I can't do both." Conner smirked, purposely crashing through the snowboarders with his Bowser.

Kaldur followed them, cruising along with Rosalina a little ways behind the three younger boys, expending seemingly no effort to keep his place ahead of the NPCs.

Garth was restong on his elbows on the back of the couch, watching the race intently. Atlantis had plenty of entertainment, but none of the electronic kind. This was his first time seeing an actual video game and, to be honest, it was a little too bright and blurry for his taste. But, were it slightly more muted, he thought he'd definitely want to play. The space street was particularly enticing to him.

_"Rainbow Road," Wally corrected him when he expressed his interest. "And I swear; if you turn out to be one of those people who somehow drive the entire thing without falling off even once, your position in this team will be_  severely _compromised."_

_"No, it won't," Kaldur corrected. "Frankly, I am not sure this competitiveness is good for our spirit. Hardly a team building exercise when we're encouraged to betray each other."_

_"Don't look at it as betrayal, 'laddy," Wally said, flinging an arm over his friend's shoulder with popcorn in the other hand. "Think of it as, uh... training for when we have to go undercover as enemies."_

_"Yeah," Robin agreed, starting up the console and plopping down on the couch, "we're practicing trayal."_

Robin, Wally, and Conner were driving neck and neck, each leaning forward on the couch and using every opportunity to accidentally run into an other—both onscreen and off. All their powers were off and only pure skill was left.

"Hey, Supey," Wally said as they neared the finish line, "betcha you'd be better at this if the game were nothing but static, right?"

" _You_ _'_ _d_  be better at this if we were chasing food." He squinted to navigate the snowy hills.

" _I_ _'_ _d_  be better at this if I could write a cheat code." Robin leaned right with his whole body to make a turn, all the way into Wally's shoulder. "What; Kaldur never trash talks."

All three boys' hearts raced as only the last turn was left. A bead of sweat ran down Wally's temple, and Robin's eyebrows drew together above his sunglasses.

This was it. The final showdown.

Then, three precise green shells struck, and all of them were left incapacitated barely two yards from the finish line, as Rosalina drove past them and did her regal victory lap.

Two black heads and a red one turned to the left, where Kaldur was sitting on a separate chair, the corners of his mouth lifted up in the tiniest "booyah" smile anyone would ever see in the history of time and space.

"So much for 'competitiveness bad,'" Wally muttered, rolling his eyes. "Oh, wait!" He pressed gas just in time to finish fifth and stick out his tongue toward his best friend who had yet to recover from the surprise.

"You didn't win, Wally," Robin pointed out after finishing seventh. Conner's remote already lay somewhere in the couch cushions, its owner gone in search of food. Bowser looked very impatient, stuck nearly motionless in twelfth place as the timer continued running.

"Beat you, didn't I?" He smirked. "Okay, so who's up for Moonview Highway?" Wally rubbed his hands together, brushing his Inhibitor bracelet. He wasn't sure if that was the placebo or his actual metabolism, but he didn't feel quite as hungry as he usually did.

"Guys, guys!" Garfield burst in the room with a toothy grin on his face, two incisors fallen out. "Guess what I just found out!"

"That Wally sucks at video games?" Robin guessed.

"What?" Gar grimaced. "No, listen. Look at me; I'm totally green!" He held his hands out and wiggled them, spinning around in his shorts to show off his, indeed, entirely green body, including the hair. "How  _cool_  is this?"

Not quite agreeing with the kid, Wally and Kaldur exchanged a wary look. "Uh, Gar, have you told your sister?" Wally asked, scratching his neck uncomfortably.

"No, duh; she's out with the girls, remember? I only just took my shirt off; that last bit on my shoulder was still normal this morning. But that was the last one, I checked. So." He ran over to the couch, jumping into Superboy's place and practically bouncing up and down. "When do you think I'll get my new powers?"

Kaldur sighed. "Garfield; we've talked about this. It's not likely—"

"Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't get my hopes up; whatever. I can feel it. Somethin's coming." He spread his lips wide apart, revealing his miraculously still white teeth in all their glory. "Man, who would've thought I'd be  _green_?"

* * *

_The training center was filled with giggles and snickers as the six teenagers tried to stay upright in their impossible positions. Zatanna and Kaldur had already lost and were standing to the side, refereeing the rest. The girl was especially taken with watching Garfield—who had begged out a chance to play with the team—laugh and smile, and be so much more energetic than she'd ever seen him._

_Almost exactly three months since his only parent had died... It had been tough on all of them, but he deserved a chance to feel like a kid again, Zatanna mused. His joy was really something, brightening up the dark halls like a shining beacon of light. Games were not commonplace in the Cave, with the general superhero crowd favoring combat training, but that didn't mean she couldn't set a few things up for him while the others were away. Out of the way, not bothering anyone. The kid really needed a laugh and, boy, she needed a hobby to take her mind off her dad when booze, boys and magic wouldn't do it._

_Zee smiled, watching him collide with Raquel and leave a messy trail of color on her shirt. Puddles of paint had been poured onto their respective Twister mat areas and, the more they played, the less clean they got. Garfield, especially, was covered with bright color from head to toe._

_Kaldur had gotten off easy—the only things he had to wash off were his hands—, but Zatanna's hair had suffered, and out on the battlefield an all-out war was raging between M'gann and Dick._

_"You cannot hope to beat me, human!" The Martian announced, elongating her arms to wrap over Wally and reach the red spot. He squirmed slightly, glancing at Artemis right beside him with an unsure grimace. The image of a six-armed M'gann _—_ one of them grown out from her head _—_ was still an arm's length away in his mind, and it wasn't a pretty one._

_"Talk to me when you've mastered holding yourself in one position for hours," Robin said, showing off his insane stretching capabilities. "Shape-shifting's good and all, but I'll bet you'd fall over with a tiny push." He grinned and completed the next move with an easy, but impossible-looking twist of his torso._

_Her eyes narrowed as an excited smile tugged on the corners of her mouth. "Bring it on, Boy Wonder."_

_The game between the two of them lasted for an hour even after everyone else had given up—Wally and Artemis sneaking off to the communal showers for undisclosed activities—and, in the end, M'gann was declared the victor, but a sweaty and slightly sullen Robin demanded a rematch without her Martian abilities._

_It was that night that it was decided all gadgets and powers would be turned off on Game Night—whenever that was. With the help of the Inhibitor bracelets they sometimes used for training, if need be, simulating the Inhibitor collars everyone had already been forced to wear at some point._

_Nobody wanted to be utterly helpless without abilities so easily taken away during battle, but, on Game Night, everybody was equal._

_Just as they were wrapping up, Garfield walked back in with a fresh towel around his shoulders, hoping to catch the very end of the match before his bedtime._

_"Aw, man!" He pouted, seeing that it was already over. He pushed the pajama sleeves up to his elbows and crossed his arms, waiting for M'gann to come and read him a story._

_"I'll be right there," she said, telekinetically removing all the dried paint from the plastic mat and folding it up. "Oh, Gar, you missed a spot." She pointed to a small patch of leftover green paint on his right arm, near the crevice of his elbow. He scratched it curiously and spit on his hands to clean his skin._

_Garfield watched as the hall emptied, everybody wandering off in their respective home directions, and rubbed his arm absentmindedly. When he looked down several minutes later, the patch of green was still there._

_"Uh, M'gann? It won't come off." He frowned, sniffing and holding his limb up to examine the paint._

_She paused her winner's clean-up—another rule, but one the team had made long before that night—to come over and lay her hand gently on his head._

_Gar rolled his eyes, in that phase of questioning if he was too old for that kind of thing. "No, I'm serious, sis." He felt a tug in his heart at the term, still getting used to the it being accurate, legally and everything. "Try it."_

_She took his arm and prepared to repeat the same process she'd performed on the Twister mat, only this time her little adopted brother winced in pain and yelled "Aw, no, stop!"_

_She dropped his arm immediately and her lips puckered in concern. "I don't understand," she said. "It's just paint. Why won't it come off?"_

_"Maybe I'm turning into a Martian, like you," Gar joked, rubbing the slightly itching little spot. She, however, drew back and considered._

_Her eyes turned red as she examined his arm from within. "Those are actual skin cells." She straightened in surprise. "And my DNA. I don't—" M'gann blew out a breath as Gar's eyes grew wide. "Well, I suppose I've never actually heard of another cross-species blood transfusion. It could be a... side-effect?" She frowned and pulled him into a hug, worry pressing on her chest. "Aw, I'm sorry, Gar."_

_"For what? Are you telling me I might_  actually _be turning green?" He looked up at her with the opposite reaction of hers. "'Cause that would be_  coooooool _."_

_"But—" She could do nothing but look on as the boy untangled himself from her and raced to the nearest mirror to see if his skin had spontaneously changed color anywhere else. "You're supposed to stay normal," she muttered to herself, feeling the weight of guardianship crash down on her, and not for the first time since it had been made official two weeks ago, with J'onn as the primary caregiver until she turned "eighteen"._

_Terrified that she must have done something wrong,_ again _, M'gann slumped down to the floor and sent out a request to the universe to ask Marie for guidance, if she was anywhere out there._

* * *

"Let me take a look at that," Conner said, coming back over to the couch and holding two large sandwiches, one of which he threw to Wally, who bit down appreciatively. He pulled the boy in his lap and examined one limb after the next in such a way that tickled and caused Garfield to giggle.

"No; don't see any whiteness here." He let go of the ribcage. "How about here?" He checked in the boy's armpit, making the boy squeal.

Wally and Robin looked at the brothers of sorts with amused expressions while Kaldur taught Garth the basics of the Wii console and gameplay. The actual game blinked the continue screen on the large TV, abandoned, and let out a reminding whine every now and then through the remotes.

For a while, the only sounds in the room were Garfield's laughter, increasing frequency with every week that passed by, and muffled conversations, which were drowned out by Wally's very loud munching.

Then, lively chatter from somewhere else in the Cave joined the casual noise in the lounge, and Gar jumped out of Conner's arms, racing towards the sound.

"M'gann, M'gann! Guess what; I'M FINALLY TOTALLY GREEN!"

Wally chuckled to himself and stuffed the last of the sandwich into his mouth, wiping his hands on the tattered jeans he was wearing, then got up and followed Gar's lead out the door and to the visitors.

Artemis, Tula, M'gann, Raquel, and Zatanna were standing by the Zeta tubes—dressed to conquer, with windblown hair and a reflective glow on their flushed skin—and huddling around Garfield with equal parts uncertainty, excitement, worry and happiness at seeing him this hyper.

He was the heart of this team and everyone would protect him with their lives.

"Hey, babe," Wally called out to Artemis as he approached, "how was the club?"

"Mmm." She smiled. "Just what I needed."

"Yeah? Meet anyone interesting?" He came closer and leaned against a wall nearby.

"Well, I  _did_  think I saw this red-headed boy with lots of freckles and an apparent Flash obsession," she teased, snaking her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his. "I kinda wanted to dance with him, but—oh, bother—he turned out to be a hallucination. Whatcha gonna do."

"Hmm." He bit on her earlobe thoughtfully. "You know, if all redhead boys with freckles are interchangeable to you, I could be willing to volunteer to dance with you."

"Would you?" She smiled, satisfied with the response. "Well, then; my people will get in touch with your people and I just might come and whisk you away one starry night, Freckle Boy."

"As long as you don't ask me to let down my hair." He grinned, shaking his recent buzz cut, which he had a habit of getting every summer to deal with the heat.

"Nah," she bit his bottom lip. "But I would like you to let down something else right now." She leaned in and whispered into his ear, her mouth just barely brushing his skin.

Wally's eyebrows slowly shot up as he listened and he had to swallow to wet his very, very dry throat, pupils dilating considerably. "Uh, we'll be right back," he said and took her by the hand and lead her away, the two of them almost running out of the mission room.

Zatanna looked at their retreating figures with a mix of amusement and jealousy in her chest. "Gar," she said, glancing at the boy attached to M'gann's arms, "stay away from the showers tonight if you know what's good for you."

"Why?" he asked, climbing up his sister and doing a backwards flip.

"Just trust me," Zee said.

"Okay," he said easily. "Man," he muttered, "Climbing is so easy for Monkey. I wish he was here. We'd both be green. I miss Monkey." He looked at the floor with tight lips.

"You know he needs the wild," M'gann said regretfully. "But we could go visit him sometimes, if you want," she offered. "We'd just need to track him down first."

"Wolf could do that, right?" He immediately perked up. "Oh, that would be awesome, sis! Can we do that this week? Please? Pleeeeaaaase? Pretty pretty please with Wally's whole dessert collection on top?"

"Sure." She smiled and pulled him close, still unable to ease the pang of worry from her heart.

"Yaaaay! I have really missed being around anything with tails. I mean, there's Wolf, but he doesn't count 'cause he's, like, half— uh, human-like. What's the word?"

"Sentient," Tula offered.

"Yeah, that. It's not like being around most animals, you know? He almost talks back to you. But his tail is awesome. I've always wanted a tail. Have you ever wanted a tail, sis? Aren't they the best ever?"

The girl had to pause just a little to consider her thoughts on the subject of tails. Martians didn't have them—hah, could you  _imagine_ —, nor did anything else on the planet she'd grown up on. Her first encounter with them had been on Earth, when a dog almost bit her leg off on the first day. She'd heard they were pretty practical, though.

After a moment of deliberation, M'gann decided she had no particular feelings about tails one way or the other.

"The very best ever," she agreed anyway.

"I wish I could have a tail." He blew out a breath, starting to dance to some music only he could hear.

"Uh, and I wish I had a million dollars," Raquel said, staring at him with eyebrows halfway up her forehead, "'cause, boy, you're getting one."

M'gann's head snapped around at the same time Gar's did, and her ears were momentarily deafened by the startled scream he let out, staring at the foot-long, furry appendage growing out of his butt.

Then it grew back in from his shock, and he looked normal as ever, if a little motionless. But by the time M'gann's mind had unfrozen enough to process the fact that her little, green brother could... do  _that_ , he had already grown it out again, this time consciously.

The second scream he let out was more like a joyous squeal as he started to jump around, twisting his small torso to get a better look, and chased his tail. The girls were all staring at him, mouths gaping, and were soon joined by the guys, who had come running to see what the sound was, but Garfield could see nothing but the glorious thing attached to him. His grin spread wide, and he knew he was not going to bed for hours no matter how much  _anyone_  forced him to.

"TOLDJA!" he yelled to no one in particular as fur appeared on his lower arm, just to see if he could do it.


	22. ICED CREAM: Underneath The Sun

"Thought I'd find you here."

Artemis slipped out of her half-unconscious state with a groan and opened her eyes, pulling her sunglasses down a bit to see and feel a ridiculously pale boy sit down on the tanning chair, next to her lounging legs. Her hair was spilled out all over her, with the overhead parasol attached to the armrest protecting her from heatstroke.

"I thought you were busy today."

Wally laid a hand on her thigh lightly, smiling crookedly at her. "I was, but how could I pass up the chance to spend a day at the beach with my super awesome girlfriend?"

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What do you want?"

He chuckled and put his palms up in defense. "You got me. I have a huge favor to ask you."

"It had better not involve going skinny dipping."

"With this crowd?" He looked around at the hundreds of people around them on the Happy Harbor Beach. "Whaddaya think, that I'm crazy?"

"Yes."

"Well... Fair enough," he allowed, "but no. My mega important favor features this," he said, holding up a bottle of sunscreen, "and this." He half-turned away and pointed to his freckled—and already slightly pink—back. With deliberate exaggeration in his movements, Wally gave her the most charming grin he could muster. "Would you mind?"

Making an effort to keep herself from smiling, Artemis took off her sunglasses and pushed herself upright, hooking her leg around Wally's waist and pulling him closer, back-first. Unprepared for that, he fell instead, head falling into her lap with a perfect view of her chin—she had the prettiest jawline—and the rest of him settled in between her legs.

She shrugged. "This works too." The lotion was taken from his hand and squirted into her open hand, smelling faintly of... peppermint? "Did you manage to get in touch with Rob?" She rubbed it generously on his shoulders and chest, occasionally tickling him just to see that flicker of a smile on his face.

"Nah. I figure the guy's got enough people breathing down his neck." Wally shrugged. "Wherever he is, I hope he cools down to work through this mess."

"Yeah. Gotham without the Dynamic Duo just wouldn't be the same."

"Question is, which Dynamic Duo?" he pointed out and her movements faltered for a bit, processing that. With the tiniest of sighs, she traced his collarbone idly.

His eyes were closed, fingers resting on her lower arm, and, for a moment, he looked just like the picture of a perfect teenage boy on a hot late June day, with no worries save for getting a summer job or getting enough sun.

Then, his stomach growled and he pulled three foot-long sandwiches out of his bag, and the illusion was shattered into as many pieces as there were freckles scattered across his body. He sat up, chewing down the cool, meaty goodness, and asked her about her day as she moved her hands to his back.

Her replies were automatic and absentminded as her gaze couldn't help linger on the strong, capable shoulders before her, the scars of battle that she asked about every time she got him naked, and the muscles underneath her fingers that rippled with every movement of his arms, twisting and turning to adjust to a new position in what must have been the pinnacle of nature's engineering.

For about the hundredth time, she came to the conclusion that Wally West's back was an absolutely fascinating thing.

The chatter of people she didn't know around her turned to static and the blue sky turned white and blurry as everything Artemis could see was this boy. His every hair came into sharp focus, each breath that he took—sandy, crisp,  _maddening_ —was the sound that kept the universe spinning, and the heartbeat she felt underneath her palm seemed impossibly in tune with her own.

Giving into her impromptu desire, having forgotten everything but him, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, brushing her lips over the slick skin—

Wait,  _slick_?

Artemis drew back sharply as his head turned back toward her, mouth full and eyebrows drawn together in perplexion, and her tongue cautiously touched the inside of her lips, though she could feel it wouldn't be good.

As soon as her taste buds caught up to her mind, she sputtered and grimaced, wiping the inside of her mouth to get the taste off with hands she didn't even realize were covered in the very same substance she was trying to erase. "Ew, ew, ew, ew,  _ewwww_." She half-gagged and shuddered visibly, now using the back of her hand to cleanse her tongue. Which, truth be told, could stand to be a little less covered in sand. "What is in that stuff?"

Wally swallowed the remainder of the sandwich in his mouth and quickly handed the rest of it to her before realizing that the last thing she should do was take the slickness down along with it. "Babe, it's not whipped cream. You're not supposed to lick it off me."

She stopped her spitting long enough to scowl at him as he took the sandwich back and reverently put it on the seat. The grimace caused him to chuckle in pity and, as she returned to hocking loogies, he dug around in his bag for a can of soda.

"Here." He held out the slippery, pink tin in apology. "The sheer amount of bacteria-killing chemicals in this should rinse that taste right out."

She grabbed it from his hand and chugged it down, gurgling and swirling it around in her mouth before spitting it out. "Yeah, that tastes just as vile." It was good enought to get the sunscreen out, though. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand and gave the can back to him. "But thanks. Uh, do you actually drink this?"

He rested his fist in his lap while examining her carefully for any signs of paint-sniffing high or something. "No. I wanted to try this Tab drink because of... well, never mind, but, uh, I haven't had the pleasure yet." He took a sip curiously and immediately winced. "Nope; no pleasure here." He set the can down in the sand and put an arm around her shoulders, kissing her to evaporate the last of the unpleasant taste off her senses.

"Hey, uh... Wally?" A girl's voice came from somewhere behind them. They broke apart to see a short-haired girl in a bikini with a surfboard wave awkwardly at them, while her companion, a lanky and clumsy boy, stumbled along on a skateboard that refused to cooperate with the wooden panels of the beach road.

The sound of his exasperated groan made something click in Wally's mind. "Oh, uh... Wen...dy, right?"

She nodded with a small smile and glanced back at her struggling friend with an eyeroll. "I didn't expect to see you here; I got the impression you don't live in Happy Harbor."

"Oh, yeah, I'm just... visiting," he stammered out, desperately trying to recall what personal details he might have given out at the Halloween party. "Megan. Our— Uh, our moms are tight, yep. I spend summers here sometimes. It's probably likely we'll run into each other again sometime. No big deal. Happy Harbor and I are pals. Veeeery good pals." He cleared his throat, feeling heat creep up his neck.

"Ah," she muttered.

"Oh, uh, this is Artemis." He half-turned back to the girl sitting behind him—still making disgusted faces—and held onto her hand for moral support. "My girlfriend." He still couldn't keep the joy and amazement out of his voice whenever he said the word, even after all these months. "Artemis, this is Wendy. And... Martin, was it? They go to school with Megan and Conner."

"The name's Marvin," the guy corrected, stepping off his skateboard and taking it under his arm. "You're the dude who got eaten by aliens, right?"

Artemis looked at her boyfriend curiously, raising an eyebrow, but he couldn't see it. "Uh, yes. Yes, that was me." Well, that was a story she couldn't wait to hear.

Marvin gave him a once-over, gathering his lips in one corner of his mouth as he evaluated whether to forgive the prank that had, in combination with his own failed prank, made him a social pariah for a week. "Nice one, man." He gave a thumbs up and Wally smiled awkwardly, praying for the encounter to be over.

"I guess we'd better be going; don't want to be late," Wendy said, looking at her watch. "Say hi to Megan and Conner for me, okay? Oh, and we play beach volleyball every Wednesday right over there, if they—or you—ever want to join."

"Yeah, sure." Wally nodded and played with his hands as they left. He peeked up when they were long gone and let out a relieved breath. "Thank God; I thought they were gonna ask us how we met, too."

"That's not really most people's first reaction," Artemis reminded him, putting her arms around his neck from behind and kissing his cheek.

"Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that we've been asked that three times in the last month." Wally ran a hand through his hair, looking at the scarce amount of people actually in the ocean despite the ridiculously hot day.

"Uh... one of those times was my sister, if I remember correctly; you might not have noticed," the blonde teased and wrapped tightly around him, "but she was joking."

"Still," he muttered. "We really need to come up with a concrete backstory. Hey, Artemis." He turned back toward her with that glint of idea in his eye. "Wanna go for a swim?"

"I... don't think the water's gonna be warm enough till, like, August."

"Come on. Scaredy cat." He smirked, not knowing her to ever back down from a challenge.

"Oh, please." She snorted, and slapped his butt, indicating he was to get up, with her clinging to him like a backpack. "I will have you know I once spent an entire night tied to Icicle, Jr's back."

He grimaced, putting his arms under her thighs and hoisting her further up as he checked whether there weren't any valuables left behind. "Agh; things I didn't need in my head."

"Shut up; it was a mission. Point is, I didn't even get a cold. So. There." She rubbed her palm over his head, loving the feel of his soft, short hair bending to her every pressure, but also staying firm enough to tickle. It had taken her a while to get used to his buzzcut, but, now that it was growing out just a little, tiny bit, she realized she loved it.

Wally had just started making his way to the water, Artemis casually strapped to his back, when his gaze landed on a colorful booth. "Ooh, babe, you want ice cream? I want ice cream. Finishing up a creamy delicious goodness on a hot summer day in the ocean is like the best feeling ever; you'll see."

* * *

 

"I take back what I said." Wally wiped the water out of his eyes, wishing he had the Kid Flash goggles with him. His ice cream had ended up completely soaked in the waves—not that it lessened its value—and, wherever the air touched lingering wetness on his neck and face, a prickling feeling of hollowness followed. "This was not a good idea."

Artemis only smiled to herself and bit her lip in consideration as she cruised on the waves in a backward motion, watching the slightly shivering boy scramble to keep hold of his half-eaten, soaked waffle cone and avoid being pushed around by the currents. Something about the scene was just so... alluring.

She couldn't figure out why that was. By all logical thought, she should be attracted to him when he was smoldering and sexy, and oozing frustration of his own, but, weirdly, it was moments like this—when Wally was dorky and clumsy, and not so quick with the comebacks—that she wanted to jump him the most.

It admittedly created a bit of a hurdle in their intimate life, seeing as how these awkward moments rarely put him in the mood and, well, his alarmingly escalating attraction to her whenever she was punching or kicking something, or doing physical activities of any kind, didn't really do it for her, either. But, then, it was early enough in their relationship that all it took was one lusty look to get their urges synchronized.

As such, the vastly differing turn-ons were a problem for Future Wally and Future Artemis to solve.

She submerged herself in the cool water to calm her racing heart and, oh, so many dirty thoughts, but it ended up being moot because the clear liquid provided her a perfect view of his chest and legs and... other parts. Doing the oddest dance of rubbing limbs together while trying to remain steady that she had ever seen.

Oh, something was definitely wired wrong in her, she thought, feeling the nerves in her chest and arms ache with need for him, but, right then and there, she didn't care.

All it took for Artemis to be next to Wally was one kick-off, and then her hands were already running over his magnificent ass before her nose even broke the water. Mildly started, he still welcomed the following kiss, losing himself in the wet fullness of her lips, as he always did.

"If you're feeling cold, I know how to make you warm," she suggested, fingers traveling lower to the elastic of his trunks.

It took a beat for the words to register in his brain, but then his fist closed over her wrist, holding her hand in place. "No." His voice was deeper than usual and cracked a little, but had a certain firmness to it. "Not the ocean."

Her shoulders slumped. "It's not like there's anyone watching." She gestured to the vast harbor, largely empty save for the two of them.

"It's... just the principle." He sighed. "But," he continued, kissing her again, "I would love to go somewhere else and, uh, do whatever you were planning to do."

"Ah, forget it." She pulled back, feeling the moment slip away and resigned to the apparent fact that today just wasn't a day for nakedness of any kind. Instead, with mischief in her eyes, Artemis snapped the heel of her palm across the surface of the water toward him. The water was useful for many things, after all.

Once again, he had to wipe cold water off his face, but this time there was a grin on it. "Oh, you're getting it now."

He dove in after her and grabbed her by the waist, somehow taking them both beneath the surface with entangled limbs, and they ended up spending the entire afternoon playing and splashing around in the cold water like children in a pool, until their lips turned blue and they could swear their fingertips would forever remain wrinkled.

Wally never saw that can of Tab again.


	23. ICED CREAM: Take Care

The asphalt was warm and slippery under Artemis' bare feet, and the air smelled of wilted flowers and depressing humidity. She snuggled into her sleeveless gray hoodie, brushing a stray fallen leaf off her half-exposed shoulder, and tried to shield her intruding hair from the gigantic, soft drops falling from the sky. There were few things she liked less than feeling as a wet dog, with her immense—and sometimes rather unmanageable—volume of hair sagging down under the extra weight of water. One of them was running in tennis shoes that squeaked and took on the purpose of the sponge with every step she took, which is why they were currently hanging by their shoelaces from her fingers.

As far as Artemis Crock was concerned, water belonged in oceans, pools, and pipes, not people's personal lives.

She brushed the damp fuzziness of newly grown hair back from her forehead and adjusted her shorts when she saw the West house come up a block over. Gripping her backpack tightly, she started a brisk jogging pace, careful to watch out for broken glass on the sidewalk. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun and, suddenly, she felt an electrified energy running through her at the freshness of the air—no longer pressing down on her, but inviting everyone it touched to a new beginning.

Artemis chuckled to herself and skipped up the steps to the front porch, taking off her hoodie only when she was under the roof, just in case the wind managed to blow leftover drops off the trees surrounding her and ruin the largely dry hair she'd managed to keep so for the first time since... well, a freaking long time, she was sure of that. Rain had never been her friend.

She knocked lightly on the curtained glass of the back door and waited a minute, not really expecting an answer. When there was none to be heard, she reached into her backpack and pulled out the lock pick she had brought for just such an occasion. It took a few tries, seeing as how she hadn't practiced the craft in quite a while, but it appeared her father's rigorous training regimen was at least good for something.

Clicking down the handle as quietly as she could, she slipped inside, wiping her wet and dirt-stained feet on the welcome mat beforehand. Her eyes immediately landed on the form of a teenage boy sleeping on the couch in front of the TV with an old, hand-knit blanket covering half of him—mostly the lower half—and pooling down on the floor the rest of the way. There was a bowl of some kind of soup that was yet to be finished left on the coffee table and next to it lay a stack of books on far more subjects than Artemis thought was healthy—ranging from highly advanced physics to tabloid magazines to  _A_ _Song_ _of_ _Ice_ _and_ _Fire_  to... Flash comic books, for whatever reason.

An affectionate smile gracing her face, she closed the door slowly and set her backpack down somewhere next to it. As she realized she was almost dripping from both her hair  _and_  her clothes, it dawned on her that not bringing a change of wardrobe may have been a stupid move on her part, especially now that the weather was so unpredictable. Resigned, she started to make her way to the downstairs bathroom to at least get a clean towel.

"You know, there's a spare key under one of the steps," a voice said from behind a wall, scaring the everloving shit out of Artemis, and a face quickly peered around the kitchen corner to join it. "Or we could just give you a key of your own; you certainly spend enough time here to warrant owning one," her boyfriend's mother continued in a tone much too casual for the situation, whisking some kind of batter in a large bowl. "Either way, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with you breaking and entering my house."

"Hi, Mrs. West," Artemis croaked weakly, managing an uncomfortable grin to accompany her awkwardly raised palm. "I didn't want to disturb— I mean, I didn't think anyone was home. Home and awake, that is."

"It's Saturday," Mary mused, tucking her vivid hair behind her ear and smiling gently, "why wouldn't I be home?"

With heat rising in her ears, it dawned on Artemis that she was so out of it she hadn't even realized what day of the week it was. Of course. "No... reason, apparently." She rested her hands on her thighs for a moment and started tapping them against the muscled flesh when the silence dragged on. "So," she said, taking a cautious step forward, "what are you making?"

"Oh, a little bit of this and a little bit of that." Mary stepped aside to give her a better view of the kitchen where all four spots on the stove were occupied by various pots and pans, sizzling and boiling away. "Saturdays are usually when we create a food reserve for the week and Wally does most of it, actually, but this time..." Her eyes trailed over the loudly breathing speedster who rolled over at the words, burying his face into the armrest.

"Yeah, uh, sorry about that," Artemis said, crossing her arms with hunched up shoulders, wishing water would stop running down her legs.

"Hmm?"

"His cold," she clarified. "He was only in the water that long because of me and I... think we might have had a challenge going on of who would last longer." Her mouth twitched in apology. "He was definitely shivering when he came in; I should've sent him out or something.

"Oh, nonsense." Mary waved her concerns away. "If you were trying to babysit him, I'd tell you two to break up right now. Besides, I remember when he came home that night and, let me tell you, he downed about a gallon of ice cream right after and played video games the whole night without even changing out of the wet clothes he came from the beach with." She gave her a meaningful look. "Trust me; he would've gotten sick with or without you. Speaking of which, you should better change out of your clothes as well; I'm assuming you'll be staying for a while?"

"Uh, if that's okay," Artemis agreed, gaze focused on the ridiculous amount of things going on in the kitchen. "And then, maybe I could help you with the food-making," she offered, not mentioning how it could help with some of the guilt she felt for Wally's current state.

"I would appreciate that; what people say about two women in the kitchen is absolute bull, if you'll pardon my French," Mary said, nodding toward the bathroom. "Now go clean up; something tells me you know where to find a change of clothes."

Artemis hung her head to keep herself from chuckling and disappeared upstairs into Wally's bedroom, which she had come to know as well as her own.

* * *

 

"So, tell me a bit about yourself and your family," Mary suggested as the two of them were chopping up vegetables. "It's been... what—four, five months? I feel like I barely know anything about you except how much Wally adores you."

"It's been just over six, actually," Artemis clarified, feeling a warmth rise up in her chest at the word 'adore'. "And that's kinda been by design," she admitted, trying to will away the remnants of shame about her origin.

"I'm all ears."

Artemis sighed, opening her mouth unwillingly. "Um... see, I kinda..." She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. "...Come from a legacy of villains." As soon as those three critical words were out, the rest just started spilling out. "My mom is retired—after spending most of my childhood in prison, of course—, but my dad and my sister are still active and we sometimes run into them on missions and it's this big weird deal because I was technically raised to be one of them, but I'm not, and my dad has nothing against fighting to the death with me, so..." She shrugged. "It's complicated, I guess." Her eyes snapped wide as a terrifying thought occurred to her. "But I don't, like, spend time with them or anything. I don't run into those circles. Not anymore. Well, except my mom. But she doesn't either. Did I mention she's retired?"

"You did," Mary said, chuckling as she stirred the steadily browning minced meat. "And you're also starting to sound like my dear son over there."

With a startled laugh, Artemis realized she was right. "I guess he's rubbing off on me."

Something about the inflection made Mary remember the condom that had fallen out of Wally's pocket one night and she grimaced with a little shake of her head. "Anyway, that's very interesting and all, but I meant more about  _you_. The non-superhero person with a non-supervillain family. What are your hobbies besides shooting arrows? What kinds of activities do you like? What kind of humor shows crack you up?"

Artemis' hand faltered on the knife, almost cutting her finger. It was the strangest feeling in the world to realize she didn't exactly have an answer.

"I..." Her voice cracked, grabbing Mary's attention. "To be honest, I don't really have much else besides the, uh, 'super' gig." Her airquotes were stiff. "My dad never  _let_  there be anything else when I was growing up and then... I guess I kind of never thought about it. Huh." She cast her gaze down, to the onions that were next on the list and the prickling in her eyes was just that, she promised herself, and nothing more. "I think Wally is the closest thing to a 'hobby' I've got."

Her expression grew more and more distant and horrified as that conclusion set in. With wide, unblinking eyes, she set her knife down, took a breath she couldn't feel, and put her palm on her thigh to steady her shaking legs. "Excuse me; I need to go and reevaluate my life now."

The older woman stared in a mix of concern and amusement at the retreating blonde. It was strange, she supposed, how often she heard her fellow mothers sharing stories of their children's first—or thirtieth—significant others that seemed to be wrought with nothing but dislike. No one was good enough for their children, no matter who they were.

And then there was Mary, who couldn't say anything bad about Artemis if she tried. And she had—repeatedly—on days when it felt as though her son was slipping further and further away and growing up right before her eyes. But the attempts were futile, for she genuinely liked the girl he had chosen to fall in love with and had done so ever since the first time they met.

The girl in question made her way to the coffee table and sat down on the glassy surface, waiting for the redhead to finally wake up. Given by the state of the hardened fat in his half-eaten bowl of soup, he'd been out for a good two hours, at least. That seemed to be enough for a nap. Right?

At first, she only picked up the blanket and tucked it around him, but then, as the minutes passed sluggishly by and he showed no signs of waking, she ran her fingers over his hair. And tickled his arm just a little. And turned on the TV. And tapped her foot against the floor, making sure to click the heel of the slippers she'd borrowed against the carpeted floor.

No, forget it; she wasn't this person. She did not disturb sick people's sleep when they so dearly needed it. She could wait until he woke up on his own terms. It wasn't like she was obsessed with him. Not even close. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.

Gritting her teeth, she turned off the TV and, with clenched fists, turned toward the front door to see if maybe there was something in the yard she could saw or kick, or hammer for a few hours.

Strangely, it was the sensation of feeling her leave that finally woke him up.

"Hhhey, mmm, babe?" He produced the biggest yawn she had quite possibly ever seen on anyone, confused and groggy, and all her scattered thoughts seemed to snap back into place at the sight. "H—how long have you been here?"

"Just a little while," she said, sitting down next to his legs on the narrow couch. He pushed himself upright so that his upper back was supported by the armrest and took the slightly gross soup from the table.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" he asked in a gratingly nasal voice, mouth full of noodles. He sniffed every couple of seconds and his cheeks were flushed, leaving his freckles camouflaged.

"After the way you got unconscious the second I left yesterday?" Artemis countered, recalling the moment she realized she'd forgotten her phone before she even walked out the front door and he'd already been out cold when she turned around. "I won't be responsible for tiring you out again," she declared, putting a palm to his forehead to see if it was hotter than usual.

Not that she could really tell, being untrained in such things. And Wally's normally elevated temperature levels didn't make it any easier either. Sometimes she wondered whether the reason he preferred cold showers was that he felt like his inner heat would just build and build until his body couldn't take it anymore, unless he periodically cooled down. Some of his offhand remarks over the months had suggested as much, anyway.

"But come on, babe, we had such fun," he protested, downing the remains of the soup and grabbing the nearest tissue to blow his nose in a very loud and a very long event. Artemis shied away slightly and handed him another one when he was done.

" _Fun_  is when you'll be okay again," she said, resting her hand on his knee and rubbing it encouragingly. "You've been sick for, what, five days now? It's time to return to the land of the living."

"Well," he said, pursing his lips, "I just saw the entire third season of  _Fringe_  in one day, so I don't really know what you're talking about with this 'living' stuff." He mock-shrugged, then narrowed his eyes when she lightly jabbed him in the shoulder.

"Come on; you can't possibly be  _enjoying_  this."

"As a lifestyle? No, I very much appreciate possessing operational nostrils; thank you," he said, sniffing for the billionth time. "But I won't deny it has its perks. An actual excuse to lay in bed all day and not do crime-fighting, and sleep for twelve hours straight, and catch up on reading and TV-watching? I'm sorry; I can't see how you're  _not_  jealous of me right now."

Artemis rolled her eyes with a sigh. "You're impossible."

"Yes; yes I am. But it's been really nice of you to try and take care of me anyway." Wally smiled gently, uncovering the slightest hint of a dimple in each cheek. They only showed up when his lips were at a certain odd angle and, as such a rare occurrence, made Artemis' heart melt into a puddle every time. He was very aware of that fact, and thus resisted commenting on how bad she was at the caretaking sometimes. Well, not bad. But definitely very obviously new to the role. "Check out what I found." He pointed to the stack of comic books on the table. Most of them appeared to be of Flash, but she saw one or two of Batman and Superman as well.

"Yeah, uh, why do you have these?" She picked one up and flipped through some of the pages, raising her eyebrow at the cartoony portrayal of some of the villains she had grown up being told to imitate.

"Uncle Barry gets these free—as part of the licensing deal, I think. One of each issue or something like that. He doesn't really have any use for them, though, so every once in a while I pop by—there's a whole room in the Hall of Justice full of these—and collect them for laughs." He shrugged, biting down a piece of bread he'd found laying around. "I haven't read these much since before I became Kid Flash and, let me tell you, it's a whole different deal now." He chuckled, almost choking at the thought of the things he'd read that morning.

"Yeah?" Artemis asked doubtfully, examining all the unrealistic poses the women were drawn in with a frown. "I never really had the courage to pick up the Green Arrow ones. Like, yeah, good publicity for the Justice League and all, but they're about as authentic as  _Jersey_ _Shore_."

"See, but that's the awesome part." Wally grinned, excitement sparkling in his eyes as he sat upright and dropped the whole stack in her lap. "I'm judging everyone who thinks these are accurate and, well, myself for actually enjoying them as a kid, but, from  _our_  perspective, they're so bad it's  _hilarious_." He grabbed one Superman book and opened it to a certain page. "Here; read this."

Artemis glanced at it, still skeptical, but, as she read over the panels, her tightly sealed lips and swiftly enlarging nostrils couldn't hold back her reaction for long. She burst out laughing, sending little bubbles of spit everywhere for an instant, before her hand flew to her mouth and her other arm to her stomach, clutching it hard.

"See?" He watched her hysterics affectionately, pleased with the results. "I'm telling you; these are  _gold_."

"That—" She drew in a sharp breath. "Is—" Her fingers wiped a stray tear away. "The worst—" The snorts started up again as soon as her eyes landed back on the page. "Version—" She finally gave up and just rode the laughter out until it naturally stopped, shaking her hands in the process to calm herself.

Two minutes later, she finally exhaled slowly and gratefully accepted the glass of water he offered, hoping he hadn't drunk from it first. "Ahhh. That is the most absurd Lex Luthor I've ever seen."

"I know; isn't it great?" He cocked his head to get a better look at the page and chuckled again. "I don't even know what he's doing in a comic book—as far as the world's concerned he's another Bruce Wayne—, but it's like DC Comics just stopped giving a damn about portraying people the way they actually act." He shook his head in amusement. "I mean, you'd think any person who watches the news would see this flowery naivety nonsense and drop the book in disbelief 'cause, I mean, the guy openly owns a gun factory. Come on; it should be obvious to anyone with a  _brain_  that he is not this," he said, holding up the comic book, "even if they don't know about the villain that he is."

Artemis curiously took another issue. "Is he the only one who's totally wrong like that?"

"No, practically everyone is." Wally pulled another stack of comics from behind the couch where she hadn't seen them. "I've read, like, twenty issues today and Flash hasn't said 'back in a Flash' even  _once_. Talk about misrepresentation," he muttered.

They sat in silence for a bit—the rustle of the dusty pages the only sound except for the sizzling and puffing coming from the kitchen—with Artemis curled up against Wally's knees, which were put up at a nice sixty-degree angle.

She gasped and took a look back at him. "Whoa; you're in these!"

"Yeah, I pop every now and then," he said nonchalantly, not taking his eyes off the Red Tornado title in his hands. "Not so much in the newer issues since we all kinda disappeared from the public eye. But I'm just as wrong as everyone else."

Artemis continued reading and winced visibly. "They... think you're calm and slow, and ground The Flash?"

"I know; how ridiculous can you get?" He snorted. "The writers have permission to follow the League around, like, once a month to get the stories and the details right, but nobody's ever even  _talked_  to me."

Her eyebrows drew together so close she was in danger of looking confused for the rest of her life. "Making up  _words_ _?!_  That's Robin's thing!"

Wally's eyes immediately focused back on her. "Hey, about that; any news?"

She forced herself to tear eyes away from the brunet (!!!) Kid Flash on the page and looked at him, momentarily perplexed. Then realization struck and she grimaced apologetically. "Right. I totally forgot to tell you. Uh, Rob showed up at the Cave this morning... Well, whatever his name is." She brushed her hair back, scratching her forehead a little and running her fingers through the long strands. "He— He says he's going solo."

Wally groaned. "Dammit; I was afraid of that. Did he seem angry or cold, or disappointed...?"

"I dunno. Mostly just... from what he said, I guess he's just tired of the way Batman does things."

"Well, yeah; I know that," Wally said, resting his chin on the heel of his palm. "The first time he complained to me about it was pretty soon after the training simulation, actually. Was wondering what his own style was. Or would be if he were allowed one. Do you remember?"

Artemis squirmed uncomfortably. "Please don't remind me."

"But I kind of always thought they'd work it out. The way sidekicks and mentors always do."

She closed the comic book in her hands. "Apparently not."

"So. Robin the Solo guy." He blew his nose yet again. "Has an interesting ring to it. Wait, he's still on the team, right?" The redhead asked, momentarily terrified of losing his best friend.

"Yeah, but not as Robin." Artemis sighed. "He's taking up a new identity, Wally."

His face fell and he tried to swallow, but the walls of his throat wouldn't cooperate. "Well, that's it." He pushed the blankets off and struggled to put his feet on the ground. "I'm going over there right now to kick his ass into next week."

Artemis extended her arm and pushed him back onto the couch with the slightest pressure on his chest. "You're not going anywhere, Kid Ass. You're staying right here and eating soup, and staying warm, and doing whatever makes you get better."

He pouted and picked at the loose threads of the blanket, looking uncharacteristically childlike. "What if  _you_  make me better?"

She chuckled and pressed her lips to her fingers before putting them against his cheek. "Then I'll go and get you that soup." She stood up and gathered the empty dishes from the coffee table. "In sickness and in health, right?"

His gaze landed on her from the corner of his eyes. "Uh, we're not really at that point yet, but, sure; I'm down with that. The next time you get knocked out with the flu, I'm soooo there."

"I don't really do the flu, honestly," she kissed the top of his head as she passed by.

"In that case I'll have to make sure to only get sick after you do. Equality, right?" He stared after her, treasuring the laugh his words elicited from her.

"Honey, that's not how biology works," Mary interjected from the kitchen, only having caught bits and pieces of their conversation and welcoming the casual chatter.

"Whatever, mom. I'll be out of this bed in no time; you'll see!"


	24. ICED CREAM: Rest And Arrest

The palm in Artemis' grasp was cold, clammy, and stiff, and  _not_  what it was supposed to feel like.

She ran her fingers over the veiny knuckles sprinkled with freckles as she begged the universe to transfer some of her nervous heat into the pale and frail flesh she was holding. Her own palms were chilled by the iciness of the skin they were touching and she pressed her hot arms into it, hoping that the warmth would jump over, like fleas.

But, then, that wouldn't do any good, would it? There was already plenty of heat in him, just in all the wrong places.

Teeth clenched so hard her temples hurt from the pressure, she stared at the alarmingly still boy with abnormally pink cheeks, forehead glistening with fluid that formed into beads and ran down the side of his head every few minutes. His chest felt as if it were on fire— _that_  she had experienced for herself over and over in these last two days—but his limbs could have been submerged in an ice bath just a moment ago for all she knew.

If only the heat just distributed itself over his body like it was supposed to...

Her swollen, bloodshot eyes turned to her own fingers, tangled and calloused on the mattress, with little cuts and bruises she was so used to she barely ever noticed them. But they hurt here, in this sterile, white place where washing hands was mandatory every half hour with an extra special sanitizer and the air was spritzed with bacteria-killing... something. The newly forming scars on her fingers were aching from the constant assault, feeling as if lemon juice clung to her every crevice as a second skin.

Her legs were screaming for mercy, too, but she couldn't bring herself to sit down. Heck, she had barely even been able to calm herself down to stop pacing a speed trail into the floor for long enough to hold his hand when she thought she saw him move.

This was not how their summer was supposed to go, was all she could think, brushing her unkempt, sweaty hair back from the green mask she wished she could take off. All those nights spent talking about what regular teens were actually like, pretending that their families had normal family problems, going on dates outside the Cave, messing with cover identities when out in an unfamiliar city... They were supposed to go to the beach and have picnics, and play frisbee, and maybe take a cross-country roadtrip now that she had her license, and hose each other down with sprinklers, and fall together on whatever surface happened to be handy on gray, rainy days when it seemed the only warmth worth knowing came from a loved one's arms.

Some of that normal stuff they'd both been craving—even if becoming a superhero was the best decision either of them had ever made. She, in particular, had so been looking forward to shedding the torn baggage of her family's legacy and the childhood she'd never had and trying to see what everyone else saw in the civilian world. She could survive without it, though.

But what their first summer together should  _not_  be was taking place at a hospital, on a floor barely ever visited by anyone, while Wally fought, tooth and nail, for his life. The way his condition had worsened in the past twenty-four hours alone, it almost seemed as if this might be the only summer they ever got together.

Artemis looked out the closed window, hands trembling on the sill and breath obfuscating the view every few seconds, down to the few pedestrians below who were going about their night, business as usual. Coming home from their nightclubs and taking late-night strolls with their friends, and walking their dogs who, for some reason, had decided two in the morning was the perfect time to go defecate some lampposts.

She wanted to grab the bow which was resting on the chair two feet away and shoot a large, loud, snaring flare into the dark sky, just to let the world know that everything  _wasn_ _'_ _t_  okay. Everything  _wasn_ _'_ _t_  the same as it always was.

Everything had gone to complete and utter shit so quickly.

Had it really been only a week ago that they'd gone to the beach? Had it really been just two days since he'd gotten up from his couch to pee and collapsed?

She scratched at her green pants, feeling that constantly elevated heartbeat of hers take its toll on the sensitive fabric, and wished she could take them off, too. Just take it all off. Stop being Artemis, Green Arrow's protege, for a moment, and focus on being Wally West's girlfriend who was scared out of her mind.

But Wally West wasn't Wally West at the moment, either, as the cut and unrecognizable, colorful mask on his reddened face so cheerily reminded her each time she laid eyes on him. He was Kid Flash, the boy who required special care because of his metabolism, who would burn through all pain killers five times over before he was even supposed to feel them. Whose immense speed in every aspect of his being—except for his comebacks, maybe—caused him to normally have a temperature that, in anyone else, should mean death. And when he had a  _fever_...

He couldn't afford to be Wally; not when the doctors didn't even really know what was wrong with him.

And she, in turn, couldn't afford to be Artemis Crock; not when the thought of losing him interfered with her fighting for his life in ways he couldn't. Her eyes scanned the surrounding area with his infrared goggles that had been left on the nightstand and, after a quick peek out the window to get a better view of the outer walls, she checked that the glass was still bulletproof and locked it tightly behind her, gaze returning to the heart monitor behind her. It had been beeping at an elevated rate for fourteen hours now, but there was nothing anyone could do until they knew more. Not even take his mutilated mask off.

At least he hadn't been forced to wear the whole uniform, like she had to. Secret identities were sacred, but not important enough to worsen his state for. Yeah, right, she thought as she recalled the words. Batman could cut away bits of the yellow fabric to free up Wally's face all he wanted; as long as the mask was on at all, it was still responsible for at least part of the terrifying amount of sweat soiling his pillow.

In the silence—filled only with the anxiety-inducing signals of Wally's heart and his shallow, cracked breathing—Artemis could hear soft snores coming from the other side of the wall. The scarce population in this freak-case wing equaled a lot of empty beds, available to any worried visitor; Rudy hadn't left his son's side all weekend, refusing to let go for even a second until the nurse practically had to give him sleeping pills. Not his wife, though. The archer could still summon the ghost of an image behind her eyelids of the moment Mary had come to check up on Wally and her gaze had shattered at the sight of seeing him in that bed, barely alive.

The curved and chaotic, but strangely comprehensible, green writing on a faded paper danced in Artemis' mind as she recalled the letters Wally had showed her months earlier and, for just an instant, she hoped that perhaps she could borrow the strength that his mother had possessed, that determination to live through this pain and to make him come out of it alive this time, as well.

But who was she kidding? Even Mary herself couldn't face seeing her son like that a second time. And Artemis... She didn't do well with grief, period.

A stream of excess water slowly pooled down her cheek as she forced herself to look away from the boy in the bed and grabbed the bow off its place on the chair, going to Wally's side and aiming it at the door.

Her legs could lecture her later; she wasn't letting anyone near him now that he could be so easily killed with one touch. Her brow sharpened and her fists clenched around her favored instrument, and she prepared for a long night.

* * *

 The quiet, almost soundless, cackling of ice spreading over the tiles in the hall gave him away. She wouldn't have noticed it if the area weren't so silent and she weren't so focused on protecting Wally. But his carelessness ensured that when he entered the room, arm ready and sharp, her grapple hook arrow's rope was immediately tied around him so tightly he couldn't move, the only loose part put around his Adam's apple. And, boy, did he know Artemis could and would tighten it at any moment.

"Hey, Cam," she greeted him with no mercy in her voice, grabbing him from behind and acquainting the rough and sturdy rope with the hard ice of his jugular, causing tiny snowflakes to drop to the floor as it cut through the "flesh" of his neck. "Whatcha doing?"

"Wh— Artemis?" Icicle, Jr.'s voice came out muffled due to her hands around his throat. "What're you—?"

"Shut the hell up. We're no longer even remotely friends as of tonight." Her whisper was deadly and sent shivers down his, admittedly, already freezing spine. "If you don't change those icicle claws of yours back into fingers  _right_ _now_ , I swear to god, you will regret it for the rest of your potentially very short life."

Knowing better than to mess with the girl he'd sparred with all childhood, he obliged and, as she loosened her grip, checking his actions, snaked his way out of her chokehold and into the back corner of the room, coughing. "Dammit; what is with you? What are you even doing here?"

"What am I—? You must be kidding." She snorted, eyes narrowing in derision as she held up her bow, standing in front of the bed, aimed straight at his chest. "Tell me you weren't sent here to kill him; I dare you."

"Kill  _who_?" He strained his head to the side to get a look at the boy on the bed; her aim followed his every move. He scowled at her, still stretching his neck to see the subject of discussion. Finally, his brow smoothed when he caught a glimpse of the red hair and his eyes landed on the yellow on Wally's face. "Oh. Huh." He clicked his tongue. "Well, that explains why Sportsmaster didn't give me a name."

" _Get_ _the_ _hell_ _out_ _of_ _here_ ," she snarled.

"Look, I didn't know it was him, okay?" Cameron held up his arms in attempt to obtain a truce. "If I had, I probably wouldn't have... Come on, Artemis, I know he means a lot to yo—"

"You think that matters? You still came here to kill  _someone_." She cocked her bow, delighted in the way it made him flinch. "And, somehow," she said, nodding toward the various machines stationed around Kid Flash's bed, "I doubt you expected an honorable fight."

He sighed. "I'm sorry. But you understand, right? Orders are orders; you know how it is."

"No, actually; I don't." Her eyes blazed in the dark room with the hint of moonlight shining through the window. "You can go and shove your orders up your ass, Cam. We're done." Her arrow was fired and Icicle, Jr. was trapped in polyurethane foam in the corner of the room, barely even resisting. "Let's get one thing straight," she said as she paged the team to come pick him up, "the only reason I'm not putting you in a coma right now is because The League wouldn't approve."

"Hey, Artemis," Cameron said, swallowing tenderly because of his bruised neck and recoiling from her glare. "F—for what it's worth, I'm sorry your boyfriend, or whatever he is, is..." He nodded at the bed, where Wally's state hadn't changed one bit during the encounter. "What happened to him, anyway?"

"None of your damn business, that's what."

She knocked him out with a kick to his glass jaw, simultaneously kicking out all guilt for turning her back on him from her mind, and returned to monitoring the door, the silence consuming her as she tried to keep herself from only listening to the terrifyingly frequent beeps which meant that Wally, though in bad shape, was still alive.

* * *

 "You should get some sleep," a voice said from behind the open door. Artemis almost fired an explosive then and there, before realizing that it belonged to Robin. Reluctantly, she relaxed her battle stance and, a few seconds later, his head peered cautiously around the frame, face illuminated by the orange fire of the sunrise creeping through the window.

"I'm not tired," she said, almost believing it.

He stepped in, clad in full costume sans the cape, and laid a hand on her shoulder after examining Wally's unconscious form. "You should be," he said. "I saw the security footage; you haven't slept in over twenty-four hours, Artemis. And you've spent most of that time on your feet. If you can't feel any of that, I'm afraid for your health as well as— uh, Kid Flash's." He cleared his throat, glancing instinctively at the security camera in the upper corner.

"Don't," she said, staring through him with distant eyes. "Don't compare us." Her words were infused with air, as if she were releasing her last, desperate breath with each of them. "I'm fine. He's not."

"He will be." Robin ran a hand through his rain-soaked hair, looking eerily like he had the night they'd had to defend the cave from the Tornado Family. "Artemis, it's  _him_. When has he ever not pulled through anything and lived to tell bad jokes about it?"

"There's a first time for everything," Artemis whispered, brushing her fingertips over a vein in Wally's elbow.

"Okay, pessimists go into that corner," Robin decided, pushing her into a fluffy armchair, almost shocked when she didn't resist (and pin him against the wall for it); she just sank down and continued staring vacantly at the bed. If he had to be honest, Dick had to struggle to keep himself from boasting a similar demeanor; the lack of knowledge worried him. But everything would be fine. It had to be. There was no way Wally would ever succumb to something as mundane as an illness. "Did they find out what it is?"

"No," she replied automatically, unmoving lips—dry, chapped, and bloodless—framing the word with a curtness. "Some kind of virus... but his, um, speedsterness makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what, apparently. Did you talk to—?"

"Yeah," he said, checking the hall both ways to make sure it was empty, then slumping down on a chair next to the door, facing Artemis. "Both Zatanna and Miss M said they can't do anything until they know what it is. So I guess now we wait."

Her glassy, unfocused eyes turned to him. "Are you sure this is the best pl—?"

"Yes," he cut her off. "The doctors here have dealt with their fair share of superhero patients that were too sick to treat in-house. Batman bought this entire floor for League needs, actually."

"Really?" Her voice didn't have a hint of surprise in it. Her voice didn't really have a hint of  _anything_  in it.

"Trust me; if anyone'll figure this out, it's these guys."

A long pause followed, devoid of anything but the beeping and the grating sound of Wally trying to breathe, as if his windpipe was filled with dozens of rusty, creaking iron filters, leaving nothing but dust in their wake by the time the air had finished the road from his mouth into his lungs.

"Robin, he looks so..." She didn't even have any words for the tugging ache the image of Wally before her released in her chest. "I'm scared,... you. Whatever your name is. You're still wearing your costume. What do I call you?" Her voice was monotonous and her eyes unblinking, half-lidded and pointed at Wally.

"Call me Robin. That is so not important right now."

"What's your real name?" she asked, her brain working on autopilot as the only thing she really heard was the beeping. "I'm sure you know mine. And everyone else's on the team."

"Sorry," he said, looking at his watch. "Wouldn't tell you even if there wasn't a bunch of surveillance equipment in the vicinity."

"What makes you so special that you know ours but we don't know yours?" The words were so quiet and indistinct that she herself had trouble understanding what she was saying. Or she would have, if she were paying attention.

He chuckled slightly. "You're the only one besides me whose full name has ever been a mystery, Artemis. At least of the seven of us."

"Oh."

He examined her ghost-like form, paling face and empty eyes, his mouth tightening. "Go to sleep, Artemis. I'll take over the bodyguard duty."

"I can't. I won't."

"I promise I'll wake you up right away if something happens."

Her eyes didn't leave the sweaty, pink, still face of the boy she loved as her lip started quivering and she finally blinked to clear out the gathering blur from her eyes. "No."

Robin sighed. "Then you leave me no choice. Sweet dreams." He took out a handful of golden powder from his utility belt and threw it at her, causing her to fall unconscious within seconds, arms splayed out awkwardly over the armrest. "Thank you, Zee," he muttered.

Checking once more that nobody was coming to assassinate Wally at the present moment, Dick turned to his best friend with teeth biting the inside of his mouth and swallowed with a heavy heart.

"Come on, buddy," he said quietly, putting a packet of Chicken Whizzes on the nightstand and opening it up to infect the room with the delicious smell. "None of us are ready to lose you just yet."

He stayed there for hours, always listening for intruders. Watched the sun come up and traffic start rumble again, and people beginning their day. All through it, Wally never moved a muscle or showed any signs of slowing heart rate. Every once in a while, Artemis stirred in her soft chair, and someone not in the know would swear, by looking at her, that she was having the best night's sleep of her life.

But all she dreamt about was a blackness surrounded by an incessant sound, a beeping that rivaled car alarms in its relentlessness, speeding up and growing longer until it became continuous—a constant ingrained into the very fabric of the universe.

A sound so vital and vibrant, still quickening somehow even though it had long since been looped, that it reached speeds and frequencies which made it... disappear. And then, finally, there was nothing left at all; only the blackness and silence.


	25. ICED CREAM: In And Out Of Consciousness

The highway terrified him.

There was no getting around that fact. He was supposed to race the cars and  _fly_  past them. Let the drivers breathe the dust he left in his wake as he sped on the road, beyond and away. Pass them with ease, barely any effort put into his body's natural state—quick movement.

He should feel the wind in his hair, on his lips, and clawing at his cheeks. He should all but see the air in front of him get cut in half by his tense, stiff fingers, parting the very fabric of the universe to make room for the rest of him to squeeze in. He should push the muscles of his legs to carry him faster, farther, and better, acutely aware of each pulsing vein in his calfs.

Of the way one of the hairs on his thighs would catch in the red material of his suit every so often and bother him for an unpleasant few dozen strides until it couldn't take the strain anymore and popped out with a small sting. Of the way it usually got stuck between his skin and the fabric— _supposed_  to be skintight—and irritated him further, sometimes causing very slight bruising that  _really_  shouldn't bother him when you think about it—in the big picture of hand-to-hand combat, his own clumsiness at any speed that wasn't his fastest, and frequent jabs in the ribs by Dick.

He should feel the tremors his heels sent through his skeleton and all the way to his fingertips every time they came in contact with the surface below him. The ones that slipped through when the padded sneakers made custom for the Flash family were not enough to subdue the shockwaves.

He should feel all of that and yet none of it because that's who he was. He was a speedster and, when he ran, keeping tabs on everything going on in his body was as automatic as forgetting that he existed as a person at all. He lived in a perpetual state of analytical hyper-awareness and mindless instinct warring inside him and that was the way he liked it. As far as he was concerned, that was the feeling of being alive.

But he felt nothing here—numbness approaching nonexistence—and too much crashing down on him at the same time—every sense he possessed being overloaded with information, making him sure his entire consciousness would shut down at any minute—, and it felt wrong.

Very.

Very.

Wrong.

The cars of strange, vivid colors and unusual shapes—pyramids, two-dimensional hexagons, potatoes—zipped by him so quickly he only saw a blur and, no matter how much he tried, he was unable to move from the very middle of the road, caught in the core of danger, but only watching on as the world passed and left him behind. It was as if his feet were standing in an invisible concrete puddle poured onto the ground, up to his knees, that only he could feel.

Helpless and scared about the lack of command he had over his whereabouts, he looked over the asphalt adorned with white paint and out into the distance, wondering what it lead to. What were all these people driving so fast to get to? What could possibly be so—

Oh no. Jeez. No. The horizon was torn apart by a powerful hurricane at the end of the lane one way and— oh, great, perfect. A blizzard the other.

Frowning, he divided his focus between both ends, unable to take his eyes off either, but, as he moved his head back and forth, the colors in the middle caught his attention. Cautious, he slowed his frantic shaking and, immediately, his mouth gaped.

The distance in other directions revealed sunny, blue skies, and the toxic rainfalls he'd had nightmares about as a kid, and black lightning, and sand storms, and volcano eruptions, and rainbows, and earthquakes, and light summer drizzles. Everywhere he turned, a different extreme awaited him. His head whipped around as far as his rooted legs would allow, trying to take the potent picture in, and it was only then that he realized the ground on which he was standing was spinning. Quickly.

The highway, spreading as far as the eye could see across the diameter of the plane he'd  _thought_  to be the surface of the Earth, revealed itself to be changing destinations with every second. The motion made him dizzy (even though he appeared to be at the very center of it) and he closed his eyes, wishing it would stop. This giant wheel of fortune felt ominous and he wasn't particularly fond of ominous things, seeing as how imminent doom usually followed them and such.

But no matter where they ended, it didn't matter because he was stuck where he was. The cars just kept driving and driving, and he thought he could see almost all of them falling off the edge when they reached their destination. The only exceptions seemed to be the ones swept up by the tornadoes or drowned by the tsunamis first. Strangely, he couldn't decide which was a better fate.

Looking down at his feet that felt nailed down to the ground, he felt absolutely terrified. He couldn't help any of these people, couldn't run them out of harm's way... couldn't even message the team to get backup. He couldn't do anything. Except...

Well, he still had one superpower left.

He screamed with all his might, waving his arms around as flamboyantly as he possibly could, and shouted to all the drivers—so, really, no one in particular—to stop. Think. Look ahead. Anything but keep going to sure death. Couldn't they see it was dangerous?

Stop! Slow down!  _Stay_ _!_

But it was moot. Nobody listened to him. He couldn't even tell if anyone had heard him.

For a moment, he wondered if he was actually invisible and intangible. He poked himself. Ow. No, that was not it. And, sure enough, the very next moment, he tried to ignore the cold and paralysis spreading all through his being as he had just figured out what was going on when he caught a closer glimpse.

They wouldn't listen because nobody was actually behind the wheel.

His entire mind glazing over with cold dread, he realized that the machines were just empty contraptions—sentient? victims of rogue programming? remotely controlled?—and he was all alone in this disturbing, saturated world that was too  _fast_  for him.

No one to save... but also no one to ask help from.

The cars flew by even faster as the world continued spinning, making him dizzier and more freaked out every second. Sometimes they would blur together, forming a metallic beast slightly reminiscent of a Transformer. Sometimes they almost crushed him as they passed by. Sometimes they actually did, except he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel any of it—not the backlash from the whipping speed, the cuts when they carelessly grazed his hip with their side mirrors, the sun or wind on his skin... not even the horrifying amount of sound he knew had to be there, tires screeching and engines revving, and thunder roaring, and winds wailing.

As he stood there, completely lost, the sky grew dark everywhere the eye could see and the drops of black spread through his vision—and his mind, it seemed—like ink dropped into a pool of water, until numbness and the dark was all that was left.

* * *

Some time later—it could've been years, but it also could've been seconds; he wasn't sure—a new picture formed, one of dancing shadows infused with yellow on a canvas of dark brown, almost bordering on black, and he suddenly wished for the numbness back.

Somewhere downward from his head, an unidentified part of him felt dry and uncomfortable, and he had trouble... doing whatever it was that he was fairly sure was essential to his survival that he couldn't presently do. The motions required were blocked by something—or somethings—and made his thoughts hazy and weak. Some sort of fog or weight, or, perhaps, a centrifuge.

He felt as if his mind were drenched in lava and, yet, somehow the additional external warmth on some other part of him did not add to the pain, but instead subtract from it. He welcomed the relief somewhere far, far from his head and relished the calm it helped spread through him. But when it moved away from wherever it was and onto right on top of his brain, his senses screamed in anguish and a spasm struck through his entire being for just an instant, like the lightning he had been so terrified of just a moment ago.

Someone gasped and the warmth trembled for just a second. "He moved. Did you see that? He  _moved_." The unpleasant feeling was withdrawn and the voice he heard through muddled water, it felt, made more sandy and black shapes dance in his mind, twisting and reforming like smoke—resembling skulls and lizards, and flowers, and pulsing circles. At one point, he was sure they'd taken on the golden hair of the voice's owner, but it was gone in an instant.

Too bad. He could've spent hours looking at the image, now that he had gained enough lucidity to know that what he was seeing were the back of his eyelids and that the warmth he wished would return to its proper place was someone else's hand on his arm. He wished he could open his eyes to look at her or move his lips to tell her to stay, but it took all his energy to even be able to sense her, let alone form semi-coherent thoughts.

"He's thinking about you," another voice said, and some distant part of him came to the conclusion that he wasn't alone in his mind. "But he doesn't like it when you touch his face. Hot and all."

"Wet towel?" the first voice suggested, raspy and unsure.

"Maybe." He could actually hear the concerned shrug in her voice. "But I thought the doctors said the contrast could worsen his condition."

"' _Might_ ' being the key word. Don't forget; they don't actually know anything. And if he's in pain..." Her thumb rubbed soothing circles on the back of his hand.

It had taken a minute for the words he heard to register meaning in his brain, but anything that could take away from the blistering heat that grew more and more uncomfortable the more his mind cleared was a welcome suggestion in his book.

"He likes the sound of that."

"Then what am I waiting for?" The hand withdrew again, something he did not like one bit, but the disappointment was offset by an anticipation of blissful coolness—so intense that even the shuffling of feet and clang of metal nearby caused only minor spikes in his headache levels. The visions behind his eyelids disappeared for a moment when it arrived as his entire consciousness focused on what a relief it was. The wet, cold water melded with the warm sweat on his forehead and dribbled down his temples, entrenching his head in a halo of freshness. Or, at least, something that made absolute numbness a bit less necessary of an option.

He was so focused on what a huge difference one towel could make that he forgot he was supposed to be listening in. He had no clue how much time had passed while he was drifting between places, no reference point for measuring, but, when he remembered that he wasn't alone, the conversation had evolved to include a third partner.

"Can't you just link us up? This relaying business doesn't feel right. He's right  _there_ , he should just lay it to us himself."

"We already tried that," the voice he longed to hear said, sounding so, so tired. He wished he could reach out and tell her it was gonna be okay. "I couldn't hear anything. He's too delirious to think thoughts  _we_  could understand."

"It requires a much subtler psychic touch to communicate with him like this. Going in so deep that, honestly, I'm a little scared I'm intruding too much."

"Hah. When has he ever complained about  _you_  reading his mind?" That cackling laugh would have annoyed him any other time—as it was usually accompanied by unscheduled ninja shenanigans—, but it felt like an eternity had passed since he'd heard it last. It sounded like music to his ears now.

"This is different," the psychic said in a quiet, soft voice.

A long pause followed, during which all he could sense was a reassuring squeeze of his ice cold foot. His toe jerked just a little, to let her know he was still there, and, for a moment, an image filled his mind of the hospital room—his own motionless form in the alarmingly well-equipped bed, a very green archer standing by the end of it, and a short boy without his trademark cape staring in the general direction of his own mirrored face (and that horrifying thing that barely passed for a mask) with crossed arms and a frown. It was gone as soon as it had appeared, but he filled his mind with thanks to his friend anyway. Not being able to see them for himself sucked, but he couldn't anticipate doing so any time soon; he was simply too tired. "He's thirsty."

Was he?

Dehydration was definitely not what was happening here; the awkward sensation in his elbow and something foreign and cool running through his veins told him that much. But, now that he thought about it, his mouth did feel a little weird and there was a certain feeling that his throat had dried out in the heat; it felt so appropriate to his current state that he hadn't even noticed.

Man, she was good at picking through his brain.

The plastic cup touched his slightly parted lips and he gratefully swallowed the trickling, cool water. His throat hurt from the contact, contracting in on itself due to lack of use, but it was a good feeling. It meant everything was still working properly, just a little rusty. In need of some oiling. No big deal.

Some of the water spilled over his lips, down his chin, and onto his neck, and, as the light fingers tried to brush it away or smooth it over his skin— _which_ , he wasn't sure—, his chest produced a similar ache, one of longing this time.

One of the girls in the room seemed to be great at being his voice and his eyes when it seemed he had none, but the other one made everything infinitely more bearable no matter what she was doing. He felt better just by feeling her near him and, if he'd had more brainpower, he would've pondered the scientific properties of that realization.

But his upper body  _was_ still extremely feverish and his lower body  _was_  still very cold, and all his energy  _had_  just been exhausted staying awake this long, and the only sense he  _could_  really access was hearing and, well, there wasn't much going on there... so it seemed only one thing was left for him to do.

Making no actual effort to do so, Wally West slid back into the dark and senseless corners of his mind, fully unconscious within seconds.

* * *

The cheese man of his nightmares retreated.  _".........._ _knew_ _it_ _was_ _a_ _bad_ _.........."_  Only to come back and grin at him some more, with those creepy razor teeth and bulging eyes. _"....…..._ _just_ _once_ _,_ _yeah, r_ _ight_ _..........."_  The monstrosity flickered in and out of his mind, before slowly fading away.  _"........_ _flames_ _on_ _the_ _shirt_ _......."_  Until all signs of cheese were gone completely.  _"...._ _with_ _the_ _baton_ _._  Which is why, if you ever encourage Zee to participate in a talent show, I'll have your head on a silver platter."

Getting reacquainted with his surroundings, he felt his hair rustle in the wind and calloused fingers stroke his open fist.

"And I guess that's everything." She sighed. "I don't even know if you're listening to any of this, but... rrrrgh, okay, fine; that is like tenth time I've said that today, but the thought of you being completely unconscious most of the time freaks me out. Just let me pretend you woke up a moment ago and started listening and it was some sort of big movie moment where you become conscious at  _just_ the time when I have an identity crisis or a heartfelt confession or something, okay? I don't even want to think about you in a coma."

He fought the thick haze between him and his body with a Herculean effort, succeeding only enough to move his little finger against hers, almost forming a pinky promise. But, then, that was all he was aiming for anyway. She chuckled and sniffed, completing the interlock much more tightly than he ever could in this state.

"Thanks." Warm lips touched his. "I really appreciate that."

* * *

_"............._ _not_ _sure.........._ _..." ".............._ _remember....._ _..." "......._ _your_ _eyes_ _look_ _......" "....._ _It_ _'_ _s_ _kinda_ _strange_ _._  We've spent so much time together, but, right now, I don't even think I know what your voice sounds like. I wish you'd just wake up and tell me to shut up or something. I've probably been talking for hours now, huh? Someone's got a fill the silence for the both of us. Maybe I should start talking about magic. Maybe that will annoy you enough to get up. Heh..." Casual sniff. "Oh, look; the sun's coming up. Right; you can't see it. Well, it looks exactly like you. Red and yellow, and orange all over. Do planets have something equivalent to freckles? Like, an archipelago. Or would those be zits? For some reason I think you're just  _dying_  to answer that— Uh, eager. Eager to answer." Pause. "I like your freckles." She ran a finger down his cheek, her hair tickling his bare shoulder from where she was snuggled against him. "I guess I've never told you that, but your freckles are like the fifth  _most_ _attractive_ _thing_ _about_ _.........."_

* * *

"Okay, this isn't funny anymore. Get up, you insufferable dork." His feet bowed to the soft pressure of a gently thrown pillow. "If you don't somehow will yourself to cool down  _right_ _now_ , I'll tell The Flash you sleep in memorabilia boxers. And we're never having sex again. And, and... I'm hogging all the food. Uh, no cake for life. I will make your life  _completely_  devoid of cake. For ever and ever. All your life, whenever you go to a birthday party or a cafe or just feel like it because, hah, you sometimes just 'feel like cake', I will be there to snatch it out of your hands and throw it against the wall, and totally ruin it. No cake. And that includes cupcakes. You do not want to live a life without cupcakes, do you?  _Do_ _you_ _?!_ "

He could hear her angry panting from way over what sounded like the other side of the room.

"God, GET  _UP_ _!_ " Muffled sobs broke through the yell. Something clattery and slightly metallic—tray of ice?—shattered against a wall far away from him and he could hear periodic banging against the floor, accompanied by quiet crying.

* * *

" _....._ _took_ _blood_ _._  Don't worry; it was just a tiny itty little bit of blood. Nothing to obsess over. It's not like you're lacking blood. Your entire face is full of blood right now. At least I think so. My biology grades suck. The teacher says I'm too hands-on for theoretical work. I don't even know what's theoretical about blood, but that's what he said. Man, this cake is good. Want some? Oh, I know you do. Then come and get it. I'm not spoon-feeding it to you. What am I, your mom? By the way, you probably didn't notice, but she was here earlier. This is a really stupid thing for you to do, going and getting sick on her like that. Very insensitive. But that test should reveal something about what the heck's wrong with you. Other than your stupidhead brain. Honestly, I'm not sure these doctors know what they're doing. They're borderline incompetent. Very suspicious. Actually, I should go check on that blood and make sure it's not, like, used for Cadmus cloning. What am I even doing here with you? You're gonna be fine. And I'm gonna have a sore throat from talking nonstop. Is that what you want? Me, unable to speak anymore? 'Cause you're most likely getting that if you ever wake up. What am I talking about; of course you'll wake up. And then lecture me about the talking. Well, joke's on you, Wall-man. I'm keeping you conscious whether you like it or not.  _Especially_  if you don't. That's what you get for getting sick. This is your life we're talking about here, not some simple mistake. For your information, you're not allowed anywhere near the beach until you start behaving responsibly; you got that? And you're gonna have to tape over my mouth yourself if you want to shut me up. I'm waiting."

He had the peculiar feeling that she was watching him. Not surprising, given the circumstances, but this time it felt like she was trying to wake him up—or melt his brain—with the sole power of her mind. After a while, she snorted humorlessly.

"You don't even hear half this stuff, do you?" She groaned and cracked her joints. "Ugh, I need to sleep." He heard springs creak somewhere nearby. "But." A finger jabbed lightly in his chest. "If you so much as  _think_  about getting all healthy and shit while I'm asleep—!" She cut off and, with a sound that conjured the image of slumping shoulders in his mind, sighed quietly. "Please do it."

The quiet was interrupted by frequent, restless creaking for a long time after that. He drifted between states of haze, as he was prone to doing these days, but he always inevitably ended up in the room with a girl who had stuck by him through all of this mess, struggling to sleep and softly crying when she couldn't.

* * *

Tap tap tap. Her fingernails and feet made random patterns on what he assumed were various surfaces below them. "...come on; open your eyes. Open them. Open 'em. Open theeeeeeeeem. How long do these meds take, anyway? Ooooopen them. Dammit, KF. It's already been two minutes and still no reaction. You're impossible. We may have  _finally_ figured out how to help you—and by 'we', I mean the wonderful, talented, and extremely smart doctors at this hospital—and there you are, as sick as ever. It's ridiculous. Commmmee onnn. It's been five days. Aren't you sick and tired of... well, being sick and tired? Dude, I haven't slept in, like, forever. I am fully accepting the bad girlfriend points for guilt tripping you and I'm gonna wear them with pride if they actually do any good, but just wake up so I can... not. 'Kay?" Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. She blew out a breath, her lips vibrating audibly from the action. "The sooner you wake up, the more energy I'll have for making out. I'm just saying."

* * *

For the first time in recent memory, the moment Wally realized he was conscious wasn't laced with either heat or the sound of Artemis' voice. The room was quiet and dark, if he could judge based on the color of his eyelids, and, strangely, the cool towel on his forehead felt more uncomfortable than pleasant. He could feel where all of his extremities were located and it actually seemed that all the tingling was gone. On a crazy whim, he tried opening his eyes, suspicious of this almost normal state.

He shut them immediately, for the room far too much resembled something out of the dreams he'd been having, spinning and colorful, and horrifying... but at least he could open them. There was a buzzing in his ears, though, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to hear anyone talking even if they did, just as he couldn't be sure it wasn't a manifest of his imagination. The jesters snickering into his right ear at the present moment sure seemed real enough.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes again, thrilled that he could, but the image greeting him looked like something out of that new weird horror anime Johnny's sister had showed him clips of just a few weeks ago. Magical girls usually turned him way off, but something about the animation style there was just so unsettling... entirely out of place. Fascinating.

He felt like that now. Out of place, with the merry-go-round spinning above him and the paper dolls dancing on the ceiling.

He closed his eyes back up with a frown and moved a little deeper into the bed, surprised to find out that he was not alone. The minimal amount of movement he was able to generate suggested that his girlfriend was curled up next to him on a bed adjacent to his. Oh. So that's what the creaking had been.

"Wally?" she asked, startled as she sensed his fingers seek her out, and rolled over to face him. "Are you feeling better?"

"Uhhhh... huuuuh..." he managed weakly, glad that his the sounds required no movement of his lips whatsoever.

She yelped at the sound of his voice, creating a stunned silence for a short while.

"How... much... better?"

"D'nno. Lot." He opened his eyes again, but this time there was no creepiness in the image, just her face—breaking out into a mixture of grins and sobbing at the sight of his lifted eyelids. She let out a half-laugh with her palms flying to her mouth, and pressed a wet kiss to his lips. "You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay..." She repeated the whispered words like a mantra, just as she had many times in those few days. The difference was that this time they were not infused with hope or denial, or fierceness, or determination, or fear, or longing, or any of the other emotions she'd gone through while saying them, feeling like a liar.

This time they were filled with relief and certainty.

But he couldn't last much longer in the waking world and fell back into his slumber, occasionally hearing muffled sounds of doctor arguments and feeling stings as the newly administered medicine worked its way through his body, battling his illness with what felt like actual tiny swords.

He dreamed of her, and of their first meeting. Her words, all of them, echoed over and over in his brain, sometimes mixed in with ones she'd never said. Her voice was what mattered. Her voice and her face, and her smile, and her eyerolling, and her groans, and her sarcasm, and her right hook. There was no one he'd rather be dreaming of.

When he started becoming conscious for small periods of time between the dreams again, probably around half a day later, judging by the light, she was talking nonstop once more, but calmly now, having slept at least a little. Over several driftings, he got the impression that he was, in fact, getting better, but something about the virus's origin was fishy and he couldn't be fixed immediately via magical or superpowered means. But that he did have the advantage of slightly faster regular healing than humans and could expect to be back on his feet within a few days. Good as new within weeks.

Sometimes he couldn't tell if he was sleeping or not. When she said things like "...muffins on top of watermelon...", "So... a ship in space, but not a spaceship?", or "...take me by the tongue and I'll know you; kiss me till you're drunk and I'll show you...", it was really very unclear. He even made a game out of guessing whether he was asleep in the present moment or not and imagining the context that could make Artemis say all those things she said when he knew for  _sure_  he was dreaming.

But none of them made him wish he could discern dreams from reality quite as hard as when he thought he heard her say "I love you."


	26. ICED CREAM: Leave And Love

"Please tell me you brought food," Wally said, groaning and doing his best to sit up without somehow getting handcuffed to one side of the bed by his tangle of endless sheets. Or the IV. Or the ceiling. It's happened before and he'd rather not go through the experience again, thank you very much.

His wrist cracked, tingles running up his arms, and he was pretty sure his pillow would stay in this form—dent in the shape of his head—forever.

Superboy ran his eyes up and down the pale boy, then over the myriad of empty pudding packages lying abandoned on the many chaotic sheets on his bed, then the trash overflowing with cracking plastic that smelled like saltine remnants.

"Why would you  _need_  food?" he asked, eyebrows drawn together as Wally groaned.

"So you don't have food?" His face fell. " Dammit, Supey; what are you even doing here, then? Wait, don't go!" He sighed as Conner turned back. "Sorry, I'm just bored out of my mind," he said, picking at a few crumbs in his sheets. "And hospital food is so... monotonous. I mean, yeah, thanks for paying for enough of it, Batman, but half a gallon of jell-o in one day is not actually that good for the stomach— _or_  my sanity—, contrary to popular belief."

"I can ask Miss Martian to levitate in some of her cookies." Conner shrugged.

"Oh, would you? Seriously, thanks." Wally settled deeper into the fluffy pillows, wondering what the heck was jutting into the small of his back. "So, any news from Artemis?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"No."

His eyes drifted up to look at the frowning boy. He tried not to say anything, but, after about a minute, he just couldn't contain the words anymore.

"Hasn't it already been seventy-two hours since her last check-in? Shouldn't we be starting to, I dunno, start looking for her?"

"Oh. Uh, she 'O'ed in to Nightwing a few hours ago," Conner said without a fuss, referring to the system the team had in place for one letter messages for those rare times when anything more was either too time-consuming or too dangerous.

"And you didn't think to tell me?!" Wally all but screamed, waving away a nurse who came in with painkillers.

"It's not news," Conner said.

"She's alive!" Wally put his arms up. "I'd say  _that_ _'_ _s_  news!"

"So are you; we don't go blasting it on the radio every two minutes."

In response, Wally could only stare, eventually giving up and burying his face into the pillow to hide his fear that he'd never see his girlfriend again... because of his mistake.

Couldn't she at least have told him she was going on a revenge mission and, like, you know, kissed him goodbye instead of leaving a note before the first time he woke up for real?

Maybe told him she loved him so he wouldn't spend all his time wondering if he'd been dreaming?

Was that really too much to ask for?

* * *

 

She came back a week after he'd been released from the hospital and into housecare.

She dropped by his house—all torn costume, tufted hair and small cuts on her fingers—and, before he could even get a word out about the way she just up and left, leaving him alone, she had already pulled all her clothes off and pushed him onto his bed, straddling him as she marked his body as hers with her tongue and teeth.

He wasn't too inclined to bring up the subject again after that.

* * *

 

Days passed and he tried to weasel it out of her: where had she been? What had she done? Whom had she done it to?

It concerned him, too, he tried to reason, because he's the one the virus nearly killed, after all. Shouldn't he know who had tried to assassinate him?

She only smiled and shoved a spoonful of soup into his mouth.

* * *

 

"Would you please step away from the door?" he asked, crossing his arms. Artemis did the same.

"No," she said and jabbed a finger in his chest. He staggered back and she smirked, satisfied. "Go back into your bed or so help me."

"Sweetie, normal people have more than two modes of operation," he said, refusing to sit down. "It's not ready-for-world-saving or bed rest. There  _are_  things in between."

"Such as?"

"Such as that I am capable of going for a walk." He stepped closer and put his arm around her to touch the door handle.

She narrowed her eyes. "Not on my watch."

"Jeez, do I have to unleash my mom on you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You can try."

"Look," he said with a sigh, "I promise I won't go and get sick on you again, okay?"

"You're not 'not sick' right now, so forgive me if I'll question your judgement in this particular matter."

"Artemis!"

They proceeded to have a staring contest, at the end of which Wally pulled her in close and kissed her deeply, like they had all the time and effort in the world.

"Fine," she said when he let her go, "but I'm coming with you. And you're wearing, like, three layers. Got it?"

* * *

 

The first time he went on a mission after getting sick, she hovered.

Hovered so much that he couldn't do his job. Or what he needed to. Or what the team required. When he had to run, she followed him as best as she could and nearly got a knife in the stomach because of it.

Halfway through the night, he was forced to carry her bridal-style everywhere he went so that she'd stop worrying and giving  _him_  a reason to worry about  _her_.

It ended up being a surprisingly practical arrangement and one they would employ on many future occasions.

* * *

 

He tried to broach the subject of affection multiple times.

Once, he asked her if she'd really been singing "Moves Like Jagger" while he was asleep. She said she wanted to amuse him to help him get better. He said that they have to go to a karaoke bar sometime; he liked her voice and the way she felt so much freer when singing for herself.

She never clarified anything else he'd been delirious for.

Another time, he pretended to be asleep while she was doing summer reading beside him. He said random words with several minute intervals, making his voice sound as drowsy as he could, before, finally, saying he loved her, as if he were dreaming it.

He couldn't see the expression on her face or whether she turned to him, but the only sound he heard was the shuffling of paper as she turned a page.

By the time a month had passed since he thought he heard her say the words and Wally was back on duty like nothing ever happened, he was just about ready to ask M'gann to read Artemis' mind and tell him the truth straight and plain.

He wasn't going to, not really, and M'gann definitely wouldn't have done it, but he found the question invading his every thought, plaguing his every action.

* * *

 

He pursed his lips and played with his pencil as Artemis picked up the messy boards, half-eaten bowls of chips, and popcorn after game night—winner's clean up and all.

Wally lay on the couch, feet up over the backrest, and examined his girlfriend, getting up and helping her clean up when he realized he wanted it to be done sooner so that they could have time to themselves.

It was technically against the rules of game night, but they all knew that M'gann and Conner frequently cheated. Why shouldn't he?

His eyes landed on the beehive, specifically one picture of the two of them fairly soon after Artemis joined the team, and the words just slipped out.

"Do you love me or not?"

He wasn't even looking at her, was all he could think. His back was to her and there was a half-eaten pretzel in his hand, and he was standing right next to a big puddle of an unknown substance on the floor, and he wasn't even looking at her.

"What kind of question is that?" she asked when he finally gained the courage to look at her.

"The kind you should have answered without me asking," he muttered, kicking the table foot lightly. She's the one it had been directed toward, but somehow he felt as if  _he_  was the one on trial here.

"I can't believe you'd—"

"Yeah, well,  _I_  can't believe you'd say something like that and make me question my entire sanity. Or, if you didn't say it, that you couldn't figure out I've been on edge. Seriously, how dense can you be?"

She recoiled. "Wow. That's uh... that's just great." She turned her back with a shake of her head and started stalking away.

"Wait, I didn't mean— Dammit, Artemis, don't leave! Not again!" he called after her, slumping against the counter. He bit his lip and looked away, jerking when she stopped.

"What do you mean, again?"

He sighed. "I mean you didn't even say goodbye before you went to hunt down whomever poisoned me. You could've d—" He cuts himself off. "And I was just gaining luc— couldn't you have waited, like, a day or two?"

"I made sure they wouldn't be able to do it again," she whispered fiercely.

"Who  _asked_  you to? If you wanted to protect me so badly, did you ever think that maybe worrying about if you were still alive might not have helped my recovery? At all?"

"There might not have been any recovery if it weren't for—"

"Might!" he shouted. "It's all just possibilities! But what I know is that I  _needed_  you there! Do you even realize how much you helped me, just by being there?"

"No!"

"Yeah, because you were gone before I could! And then— Dammit, Arty, did you or did you not say it?"

" _Of_ _course_  I love you, you stupid idiot! How is that even a question?"

His expression cleared, corners of his mouth twitching. "Really? I— Well, you're not a very open person! That's how it's a question!"

"Just because I don't  _say_  things doesn't mean I don't feel them!"

"Okay! Noted!" he said. "I love you, too!" he added after a moment.

"Good!" She huffed out a breath. "Sorry for leaving you. I just couldn't bear the thought of something like that happeni—" She let out an unsteady breath.

"Who was it?"

She shakes her head slowly. "It's not important. I just... I took care of it, okay?"

He never found out who was responsible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the mess that is chapter. Really. I've just been struggling with this fic and whether I even want to write it anymore. It's become more of a chore than fun and it's taken so much out of me and... *sigh* Right now I don't feel the passion I did when I started this fic. It sucks and I hope it'll pass, but for now it's gonna be on an indefinite hiatus with maybe unannounced breaks in between. Especially because I tried writing present tense and it just became so natural and easily-flowing that while writing this short chapter I slipped into it like twenty times and I now find writing past tense very, very tiresome. So... yeah.
> 
> There might be an update tomorrow or might now, but, in the meantime, I am still going to keep writing and you should keep your eyes open for a 50k word Spitfire AU based on the movie Keith (if you want to read it, please for the love of god don't look the movie up right now; the summaries and even posters are chock full of spoilers) that I'm going to start rolling out in maybe about a week or so (ten days?) that the few people who've read it so far loved and I myself am feeling pretty good about. It's present tense, by the way, and self-contained as a novel. And will be complete with illustrations. Called "It's Not A Date". So that's a thing that's gonna happen pretty soon and also a bunch of other shorter Spitfire AUs.
> 
> If you liked this fic, I'd recommend following me as an author because I really, really don't know whether I'll continue with it no matter how much I want to in theory. But there will be stuff coming out. So... yeah. Sorry to disappoint, I've just been struggling with a lot of things lately.


	27. ...ted.

_Your name is Artemis Crock._

_You are on the verge of being a junior at Gotham Academy, where you are on the archery team. You enjoy all manner of sports and have a soft spot for human anatomy. You are not a shining example of a perfect student, but you try your damn hardest to be as close to it as you can get._

_Your older sister ran away from home when you were very young. You run into her now and then on the streets of Gotham, but she runs with a bad crowd and your relationship is fragile at best. You also rarely see your father, whose money laundering schemes caused him to go on the run several years ago._

_You don't have many friends, but you treasure the ones you do have._

_Today is August 8th, 2011 and you are waiting for your friend Megan at an outdoor cafe on the pier at Happy Harbor, passing the time with_ Alice in Wonderland _in your hand because you're early and there is nothing more important for you to do._

* * *

She flips her hair over the shoulder every time she turns a page. It's not conscious—it just is. The wind plays hell with her ponytail and it's just common sense to use the hand that's already in motion for one thing for doing another.

She asks the waiter for another soda with extra ice, wiping a sheen of sweat from her brow and adjusting her light, white shirt that flows over the half-visible dark blue bikini she's wearing. Her legs are covered only by the shortest of khaki shorts and there's bits of sand stuck to the soles of her feet, which she has taken out of her flip-flops to rest on the chair on the other end of the table.

She checks the time every few minutes and briefly wonders if she should call Megan and ask if everything's okay. As she looks around once more to see if her friend isn't approaching her just now, she sees a different freckled redhead jogging in the general direction of her—a boy.

He's wearing swim trunks and not wearing a shirt and there's water dripping down his shoulders from his wet hair onto his otherwise dry chest, as if he'd just dunked his head into a barrel of water.

There's an odd, small black bracelet on his wrist with a blinking red light and a beach ball held awkwardly in the crook of his elbow, right above a cooler box in his hand, and— is that a giant parasol? His shades are hanging half-off his nose and, by the time he reaches the junction between the pier and the beachway a few yards in front of her, he looks so exhausted that it's no surprise when the bottom of the parasol handle gets stuck between wooden panels of the path and he trips over it, landing face down on the sturdy wood, smack dab in the middle of the surprisingly uncrowded—for the middle of the day in summer, at least—pier.

"Aw,  _man_ ," he mutters, getting up and brushing his upper arm.

"You okay?" she asks, turning slightly to face him, and kicks the ball that's landed near her feet back to him.

"Yeah," he says, shaking out his joints to make sure they all still work properly. He looks around, leaving his supplies on the ground for the moment—she sees a light blue shirt half-stuffed in the back of his pants, hanging out like a tail—, and his eyes search for something.

She's just begun to return her eyes to her book when he speaks again.

"Uh, hi, sorry to bother you, but uh, have you seen three guys running around here somewhere?"

"There's guys everywhere," she says, gesturing in all directions, which are still emptier than you'd expect them to be.

"Oh. Right. Well, one of them's really short and pale, and scrawny and has black hair and a big mouth and the other one's like a brawnier, taller version of him, and the third one practically lives in water and he's black with, like, the blondest hair you'll ever see; you can't miss him."

It seems that only then his eyes land on her own light hair and darkened skin—even more so in the summer months—and a dash of red creeps up his neck to settle in his ears.

For some reason, she has to suppress the urge to chuckle. "I haven't seen anyone like that, no."

He slumps and drags a hand through his hair—still wet and divided into dense strands that blow in the wind—, and scans the surroundings once more. Her eyes linger on the way his subtle, lean muscles ripple when he lifts his arm and her gaze is caught by the reflection of sunlight in the droplets on his chest. Something pulls in her belly as she notices his trunks have slipped fairly low on his hips.

She blinks when he groans and, torn out of... whatever it is that she was doing, does her best to return her attention to the book, crossing her legs out of some strange impulse. The sun shines right onto the letters, though, and she has a hard time comprehending any of them. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the half-naked boy standing but a few feet away from her.

"Uh, look," he says after a minute, giving her the most adorable apologetic grin when she looks up, "I'm really,  _really_  sorry to bother you again, but can I please use your phone? You can put it on speaker," he says quickly, "I won't even touch it, and I... have like five bucks, you can have them, I just need to— make a quick call," he finishes. "Unless you see any phone booths around?" he asks hopefully.

"Sure," she says and pulls out the small device, handing it to him instead of putting it on the table, after a brief deliberation. He straightens a little at the gesture and gingerly takes it in his fingers.

She pretends to read her book while he dials—sitting against the corner of the outdoor table before jolting upright when he remembers that it's not his table—and speaks to some unknown party.

"Hey, Rob, where're you?" he says, scratching the back of his neck. "What do you m—? Get your ass down h— What? No! No...I specifically remember you saying the eighth. I know this for a fact because it's the eighth of the eighth and when you said it, I started thinking about spiders and Vriska and—" He turns his head absentmindedly so that she can see his profile and it's outraged. "Dude, are freaking kidding me right now? So, you're seriously telling me that I just spent three hours on a train running late for something that doesn't even—? Ugh, you  _suck_. Yeah, well, I'm not making the trip down here again tomorrow  _either_ , so you can take your surfboards and shove them up your—" He pulls the phone away from his ear and scowls at it. "Bye," he mutters to the broken connection.

He stares at the device in his hand for a moment, before whipping his head around and handing it back to her, still cautiously. "Thanks," he mutters.

"No problem. Everything okay?" she asks, putting the phone back into her pocket.

"Oh, yeah, I just... I wasted my entire day on a thing that's not even gonna happen, so..." He groans and takes his face into his hands before exhaling and sitting down on the hot lawn chair automatically. He stares into the distance for a few seconds and then jolts, jumping out of the chair immediately. "Whoa, sorry; I didn't mean to— I'll get out of your hair now."

He begins to hastily gather her things before she straightens, pulling her legs off one of the opposing chairs, and puts her book down, closed. "You can stay," she offers. "My friend is running late and she's not answering the phone," she lies, "so maybe we can kill time together."

"Oh. Uh." His eyes run over her. "Yeah, sure. I'm, er... I'm Wally."

"Artemis."

* * *

_Your name is Wallace West._

_You go to Keystone High School in Central City, where you're not exactly the most popular guy around, but not the worst either. You run track with a passion guiding your legs, even winning sometimes, and it helps with ladies, though only marginally._

_You love physics. You love chemistry. You love reading about all the latest discoveries the scientists who work with superheroes have made and you hope to get an internship at Star Labs fairly soon, which you can use as a stepping stone in building your career._

_Your most prized possession is an autograph you once weaseled out of the Flash. It was an awesome day._

_You don't have many friends, but you treasure the ones you do have._

_Except today, August 8th, 2011, because_ today _Robert is being a dick._

* * *

"So, uh... Artemis." He purses his lips and taps his fingers on the table, shoulders hunched, acutely aware that he's shirtless while the person sitting across him is, well, absolutely stunning in every way. Come to think of it, it's probably a good thing he didn't really look at her before starting up a conversation. "What, um..." He licks his lip defensively. "How are you enjoying this sunny day?"

"Better than your skin, I think," she says and points to the red hue that's beginning to spread all over.

"Aw, crap; I forgot. Where did I— Oh, there it is." He pulls sunscreen out of a beach bag that lies abandoned between his feet and starts pouring it into his hand before spinning the bottle upright, eyelids squeezing around his eyes and teeth touching just barely in a widely visible mouth. "This is a weird thing to be doing in public, isn't it?" he realizes, palm already full of the creamy substance.

"No weirder than falling on your ass right over there," she points out with a casual smirk.

"Oh, thank you for reminding me that that happened." He chuckles with a shake of his head, smearing the sunscreen onto his skin. "This is not my day, lemme tell you that. I'm normally much cooler than this."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Are you really?"

His mouth tightens, trying to hide a smile. "No. No, I am not."

"If it's any consolation, neither am I."

"Oh, really?" He leans closer on his elbows. "What's the dorkiest thing you've ever done?"

"Hmm, let's see... There was that time I got suspended for punching a kid who took my Tamagotchi."

"That's not so bad," he argues.

"I was fifteen at the time," she continues and he snorts, closing his eyes.

"Okay, points for that. So why'd your friend bail?"

"No idea." She shrugs and actually hopes Megan won't suddenly show up. "But I was promised swimming and I am not receiving any swimming, so..." She sighs, playing with her fingers, then her eyes focus on him. She purses her lips, running her gaze all over him—well, what she can see, anyway. "Say, would you be open to a midday dip in the ocean?"

"Me? Yeah, sure. I was promised swimming as well."

"Okay, Wall-man; let's go."

* * *

When they return to the cafe an hour later, finding their stuff behind the counter and almost shivering as they put on their clothes, they laugh.

They laugh about the fish they saw. They laugh about the grumpy old man whom they accidentally splashed while engaging in a war among themselves. They laugh about the weird footprints they left in the sand. They laugh at how short a time ago they met, yet they feel like partners in some strange way.

She takes back her seat at the cafe and, this time, he slips into the chair across her with ease, shaking the water out of his hair and watching as water drips down hers. She doesn't even bother trying to dry it, just lets it soak the wooden panels below her, behind the seat.

Her shirt is becoming increasingly wet and so is his, and both of them quickly heat up again in the sun.

"I'm telling you," he says, "I could recreate The Flash's lightning if I wanted to. I mean, the original Flash. The current Flash's powers are already man-made; he said that in an interview once, I think.."

"And you think you could replicate it?"

"Well, maybe not replicate it, but I have all these ideas... I'm not gonna do it, probably, but do you think it could be a good experiment to show Star Labs?"

"I don't really know anything about Star Labs," she admits and orders one more soda, smiling as he does as well, "but you should probably go for it. No harm in trying, right?"

"Yeah, unless I accidentally end up with the Flash's powers."

"I wouldn't be too worried about that," she says with a chuckle. "After all—"

"Hi, Wally!" a different voice says from the pier.

He turns and immediately frowns, searching for the voices owner. When his eyes land on the black-haired girl, his brow furrows.

"Uh... hi?" he manages.

"Wendy," she prompts. "Remember? From the Halloween party?"

"Uh... right." He nods quickly. "Wendy. Nice to see you again."

"You too. And... Artemis, was it?"

She, who's been intently staring at Wally's face, trying to figure it out while stirring her soda with the straw, jolts upright and tries to keep her eyes from bulging.

"Uh, yes. Hi."

"Megan's been telling my all kinds of stories about you two," the girl says with an easy smile.

"You know Megan?" Artemis asks, exchanging a glance with Wally.

"Well yeah, I—" Wendy frowns, scratching her upper arm. Her eyes shift back and forth between them. "Uh..." She bites her lip. "I'm glad you guys are still together. Well, have a nice day!"

The two of them can do nothing more than stare after her with increasingly confused expressions, leaning out of their seats to better see the retreating figure.

When they finally turn back at each other, a long time passes before anyone speaks.

"Do you know who that was?" he asks, putting his hand to his mouth thoughtfully.

"No idea. You?"

"Absolutely none. What did she mean by 'still together'?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," she says, crossing her arms.

"Weird." He bites the inside of his cheek. "Wait, hang on a minute; I actually also have a friend named Megan, but we're only internet buddies. She goes to school here in Happy Harbor, so, uh, maybe..." His brow still doesn't smoothen.

Artemis narrows her eyes as she thinks. "My friend goes here, too. Wait," she says, "could we actually be talking about the same person? Megan? Megan Morse? Cheerleader of the Bumblebees?"

"Girlfriend of Conner Kent?" His mouth widens. "That sounds like my Megan, yes." He chuckles and sips his soda. " _Weird_ _._ "

"Wow, what are the odds," she mutters, shaking her head and sipping again.

"Still doesn't explain why this Wendy person knows us."

"Yeah. But, you know, Megan was actually whom I was supposed to meet today."

"Yeah? Huh. Conner was also supposed to be here; I swear I didn't get the date wrong."

She purses her lips. "You don't think it was some sort of mind-bogglingly awkward attempt at setting us up for a blind date, do you?"

"Uh..." He glances around and leans slowly back in his seat. "This is a date?"

"Isn't it?" She gestures at their setup.

A smile spreads slowly across his face. "Okay. Okay," he mutters to himself. "Although, now I am kind of regretting telling you about my Flash obsession."

"I would've figured it out anyway," she promises.

"That's encouraging to know. Anyway, uh..." He huffs out a breath and considers her stance. "Look, I have to go if I'm gonna make it home before my parents kill me, so, er..." He clicks his tongue and turns away.

She looks at her watch, brow furrowing when she sees the results. "How strict  _are_  your parents?"

"Normally pretty lenient," he says, "but I had a bit of a problem recently— No, not like that,  _nothing_  like that," he clarifies, "I just kinda... contracted a deadly virus. Barely pulled through. So I'm on a short leash for now. Especially when it comes to the beach," he adds.

"Oh, so you're a badass, huh?"

"I try; I try." He grins. "Plus, it's, like, a two and a half hour train ride to Central City in Express, so I gotta leave extra early."

Her heart falls. "You live in Central?"

He glances up at the disappointment in her tone and it only then dawns on him where they are. "Oh, shit. Where do you?"

"Gotham," she says, resting her face on an elbow. A whiny snort escapes her. "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

"I guess this is goodbye, then," he agrees, defeated. "Unless Megan hooks us up again," he adds with a grim smile. He huffs out a breath and begins to gather his things, wondering how on Earth he's supposed to carry all that junk to the train when he's pretty sure he just met and lost the girl of his dreams. "Oh, wait." He turns around, amused. "Can't have a farewell without a passionate kiss, right?"

It's a joke and they both know it, but she gets up and flings her arms around him anyway. His heart skips a beat a moment before her lips touch his and the whole world stops.

The parasol drops to the floor with a loud clank, followed by the cooler in his hand, and his arms wrap around her waist as his eyes close.

Her fingers fist in the back of his shirt and she pushes herself up on her toes just a little to get a better angle.

When they break apart, he purses his lips, still in the embrace.

"I know we live pretty much on opposing sides of the world for two high school students," he starts," but is there any way we could keep in touch anyway?"

She smiles and releases him with an almost imperceptible wink. "Maybe."

"Okay, I think that's enough," a familiar voice says out of somewhere hidden from view. Megan walks out from behind the cafe's small building and crosses her arms. "This is right about when you told me to zip it and, honestly, after what happened with Wendy, I'm a little afraid you guys will get attacked in broad daylight."

Artemis and Wally only stare at her, his arms still around her.

"Oh, right;  _Hello_ _,_ _Megan_ _!_ " She slaps her forehead. "You don't have any idea what I'm talking about!" She glances around and her eyes glow green for a moment as she takes her influence off their minds.

Wally's hand flies to his head as he squeezes his eyes and groans just a little. Artemis only blinks and lets out a deep exhale as the memories come flooding back.

"So," M'gann says, hands on hips. "Did I do okay?"

"Better. Great." Wally smiles, the action changing more than his features, and turns back to his girlfriend, kissing her deeply. "Happy anniversary, Artemis."

"Right back at you." She can't exactly contain her grin either and still can't believe she's known this doofus for an entire year. "I guess we did have some normalcy this summer after all, huh?"

"Yep." He bumps his nose against hers. "And it's gonna be even  _more_  normal tomorrow. When I have to go back to school. Ughhh.  _School_ _._ "

"Night's not over yet," she points out, "and we just bought ourselves a whole two and a half hours via zeta travel. Thanks, M'gann," she says to her best friend. "This was really sweet of you to do at the last minute."

"For you? Anything," the Martian says. "I'm just glad I didn't accidentally cause a catastrophe; we all know how the tr— Uh, nevermind," she finishes in a small voice. "Oh, you should probably take that Inhibitor bracelet off."

"Ah, right." Wally takes the key from her and unlocks the piece of black tech from his wrist. "Forgot I had it on."

"Thanks again, M'gann," Artemis says as she starts whisking her boyfriend away to some secluded corner that may or may not be public property to tear his still half-wet clothes off. "Love you!" she calls back.

He rolls his eyes. "Oh,  _her_  you say that to?"

She collides her shoulder with his arm lightly. "Shut up and find us the nearest dressing room."

"Done and done."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't know, today is August 8th, aka the anniversary of Wally and Artemis' first meeting. I hadn't originally planned on posting this chapter today because I thought it'd be much further along by now, but it's been a thing in the works for months. Almost ever since I started writing the whole fic. 'Cause first meetings are kind of a theme for these two in my head and, I dunno, I thought it was a fun thing to do for an anniversary, especially since they've already been talking about what the normal life is like. So this happened.
> 
> I kinda wanted to work extra hard on it to make it as perfect as I could, but I just couldn't pass this opportunity up, even if it did end up being a bit of a rush job. ('Cause I only started writing, like, six hours ago and a good two or three of them were spent browsing Tumblr and having a giant conversation with a couple of friends.)
> 
> Also. What do you guys think about the present tense? 'Cause this way it actually wasn't so hard. I guess my yesterday's problem wasn't actually with the fic, but with the way I was writing it? I dunno. I hope it doesn't make the reading experience worse for anyone. Also, imagine there's an M-rated part following this with the two of them in the dressing room; I ran out of time. :P
> 
> Okay, now I really don't know when the next update's gonna be, but I hope it's not too long. ;)


End file.
